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Household number and size
Assessment made on 01 Jan 2001
What is driving household consumption?
Key messages
While Europe's population increased by 5% between 1980 and 1995, the same period saw the number of households increase by 19%. Smaller households have a higher consumption per capita than large ones.
Figures
Fancybox relations
Assessment
Most countries saw average household size drop 10-15%, although it remained constant in Iceland, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. By 1995, the average European household contained 2.5 people. This is expected to decrease further as the number of one-person households increases from 30% in 2000 to 36% by 2015.
The average size of dwellings, however, did not decrease in tandem, growing from 83 to 87 square metres between 1985 and 1997.
The environmental impact of the combination of both more and larger households therefore counteracted the positive effect of improvements made to energy efficiency in household appliances during this period.
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Household number and size
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Green tips
The European Environment Agency (EEA) is an agency of the European Union.