European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, 2008

It is the European Union (EU) reference source for comparative statistics on income distribution and social exclusion at European level, particularly in the context of the 'Programme of Community action to encourage cooperation between Member States to combat social exclusion' and for producing structural indicators on social cohesion for the annual spring report to the European Council. <br> <br> The EU-SILC instrument aims to provide two types of data: cross-sectional data pertaining to a given time or a certain time period with variables on income, poverty, social exclusion and other living conditions, and longitudinal data pertaining to individual-level changes over time, observed periodically over, typically, a four years period.

Further information may be found on the <a href="ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:EU_statistics_on_income_and_living_conditions_(EU-SILC) " title="EU-SILC">EU-SILC</a> webpage.<br> <br> Users should note that only the cross-sectional data are currently available from the UK Data Archive, and these data only cover UK. The Great Britain component of the EU-SILC dataset was collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of the <i>General Lifestyle Survey</i> (GLF) (held at the Archive under Special Licence access conditions - see GN 33403).