Almost two out of five household (37,6%) from Romania finds it difficult or very difficult to pay their monthly bills and 80% of all households suffer in different proportions from these costs, the Romanian National Institute of Statistics reports, which analyzed the Romanian living standards.
According to the analysis, households led by women (47.4% of all households lead by a woman) or are formed by people aged 65 or more (44.7%) faces difficulties in paying the costs of living. More than half (57.1%) of the households consisting of two adults with three or more dependent children and 52.6% of households lead by someone working in agriculture suffer from these expenses. However, in terms of ability to pay important current expenses on a timely basis (housing maintenance, loan installments, utility payments, etc.) it can be seen that less than one third of households (30.0%) had repeated arrears, mainly caused by the unsatisfactory financial situation.
Last year, the inhabitants had different arrears, the most frequent types of arrears were electricity bills (55.3% of households with arrears), home maintenance (50.1%) and telephone subscription (41.7%). Reduced weights were recorded for loans, only 8.2%, which can be explained with the banks strict rate policy. More than half (59.5%) of households lead by an unemployed person, 40.2% of households with more children, and 30.9% of households with one parent and at least one children were late with different payments.
According to the study, one quarter of the households think that RON 1001-2000 (EUR 210-420) should be enough to cover the monthly expenses, but three out of five household consider that they need more than RON 2000, and more than one third thinks that only RON 3000 (EUR 630) is enough. The study underlines, that in rural areas the expenses are cheaper than the urban areas, as three quarters of the households living in urban areas needs more then RON 2000 to cover the daily costs. Households lead by a woman, formed by 65 or older people, or families living from agriculture or without a child consider that less than RON 2000 is enough for the Romanian living standards.
According to another study of the Institute, presented in July, the total monthly average income was, in nominal terms, RON 4,542 (EUR 960) per household and RON 1,752 (EUR 370) per person in the first quarter of 2019, while the total monthly average expenditure of the population was RON 3,834 (EUR 810) per household (RON1479/EUR 310 per person), accounting for 84.4% of the total income.
Title image: Households lead by women, families with more children and elderly people suffer the most from the living costs in Romania
