A typical household has an average annual income after tax of almost €21,000, according to the National Statistics Office, but this varies widely depending on education levels.

Households where the interviewed person had a tertiary education earned an average of almost €32,000 while those with a primary education had an income of about €16,000.

The figures, part of the Household Budgetary Survey for 2008 published by the NSO yesterday, also confirmed a gender gap in income, with men earning an average of close to €22,500 and women almost €14,000.

The survey is the basis upon which the retail price index is calculated and is supposed to be conducted every five years. The last survey was done 10 years ago.

The survey tracked income and expenditure of households between February 2008 and February 2009.

On the expenditure side, the survey confirmed that households spent almost a quarter of income on food and non-alcoholic beverages.

Most of the money spent on food was used to buy meat (21 per cent of food budget), followed by bread and cereals (18.4 per cent) and milk, cheese and eggs (14 per cent).

Only five per cent of the food budget was used to buy fish – a main staple of the Mediterranean diet. Vegetables got 11.1 per cent of the expenditure and fruit 7.2 per cent.

Although the expenditure on food remained relatively the same as that recorded in the 2000 survey, a significant increase was registered in expenditure on health. This rose to 6.4 per cent from three per cent.

Transport was the second highest expenditure for households at 13.8 per cent while only 1.7 per cent of income was spent on education and four per cent on communication. The results also confirm the car-crazy attitude, with 83.2 per cent of households owning a car or making regular use of a vehicle.

The television was the most popular commodity with 98.7 per cent of respondents saying they owned one. This was followed by washing machines (96.7 per cent) and water heaters (93.7 per cent). Computers were to be found in 65.2 per cent of households while 55.8 per cent had an air conditioner.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com