The National Statistics Office has explained that the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey 2021 is an annual panel survey that collects information on the income and living conditions of private households in Malta and Gozo.

The NSO said that in 2021, slightly more than 4,000 households were interviewed.

The survey found that for 2021 in the Gozo and Comino Region, the perceived financial burden of housing costs were as follows: 9.3% considered it as a heavy burden, 49.1% a slight burden and 41.6% not a burden at all.

The NSO noted that the median of the housing cost burden (as a percentage of disposable income) in 2021 for the region was 3.1%.

In Malta and Gozo, in 2021, 59.5% of all inhabited dwellings were either apartments or maisonettes, while 35.8 per cent were semi-detached or terraced houses. The NSO said that results show that the largest proportion of main dwellings (33.8%) contained five rooms. This was followed by 23.3% of main dwellings which were composed of six rooms, and a further 19.8% had seven or more rooms.

Home ownership was the most common type of tenure status in 2021, with 78.3% of all households owning their main dwelling. Of these, 57.0% were outright owners, meaning that they either never had a mortgage on their main dwelling or have repaid their debt in full.

A higher share of homeowners was registered among households with dependent children, which stood at 84.7%, as opposed to households without dependent children, whose share was 75.3%.

A different trend was observed among rented main dwellings, whereby 20.2% of households without dependent children were tenants. On the other hand, 10.2% of households renting their main dwelling had dependent children.

According to EU-SILC, during 2021, 3.0% of all those living in private households lived in overcrowded households.

The overcrowding rate is defined by the number of rooms available in the household in relation to the household’s size and other demographics, including: – one room for the household; – one room per couple in the household; – one room for each single person aged 18 or more; – one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17 years of age; – one room for each single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category; and – one room per pair of children under 12 years of age.

On a national basis, housing costs were perceived to constitute a slight burden for 58.5% of all persons living in households. A further 22.9% considered these costs to be a heavy burden, while for the remaining 18.6% they were of no burden at all .

Furthermore, 73.4% of persons who were severely materially and socially deprived, considered housing costs to be a heavy burden. In contrast, only 36.0% of people who were at-risk-of-poverty considered housing costs to be a heavy burden.

The National Statistics Office said that according to the survey, as reported by 34.1% of respondents, the most common housing issues were considered to be pollution, grime or other environmental problems. Noise from neighbours or from the street, was the second most mentioned problem as experienced by a further 31.5% of the surveyed households.

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