Statistical presentation

Data description

The main indicator of the wealth statistics is the Net wealth. This is calculated as the sum of the value of real estate, cars, bank deposits, shares (including unquoted shares) and pension wealth. From this is deducted debt to both public and non-public sectors. Unquoted shares and some debts to the public sector have only been part of the statistics from 2020. Thus there are two series for new wealth - with and without these two components. One is available from 2014 and the other from 2020.

Due to the obvious correlation between age and wealth, it is recommendable to use age as a background variable in most cases. Thus age are also a background variable in most publications by Statistics Denmark. Furthermore note that averages may be skewed by individuals with extreme wealth. Thus the median may in many cases be better to represent the wealth of 'ordinary' people in the selected sub-population.

In 2023 Statistics Denmark and the Danish Nationalbank has estimated payouts from aldersopsparingen, which were otherwise tax-free and thus without data on payouts. This is described in detail in Danish in the paper Estimering af aldersopsparing In 2023 Statistics Denmark and the Danish Nationalbank has collected data on pension stocks, contributions and payouts etc. to provide an overview of growth rates and flows within the pensions system. This is described in detail in the paper New data on individual pension wealth growth

Classification system

The basic structure of the wealth components are inspired by the OECD

The data are among other disseminated by type of family, ownership of dwelling, income in intervals, socioeconomic status, educational level, municipality, age and gender. The strata will whenever possible correspond to those that are used in the income statistics.

Sector coverage

The household sector.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Median wealth: Exactly half of the population has higher wealth and the other has lower wealth. Unlike the average, the median is not affected substantially by persons with extreme high or negative wealth. Thus the median may be better than the average for measuring 'the normal' wealth or debt levels in a given population.

Net wealth: Assets minus debt.

Unlisted shares (wealth statistics): Value of company wealth that can be linked to individuals.

Statistical unit

The primary unit is persons supplemented with a few tables at the family level

Statistical population

The Danish population on the 31st of December in the given year.

Reference area

Denmark.

Time coverage

The statistics on wealth and debt covers 2014 and onward – the data for every year was collected on the 31st of December in the given year. A few components, mainly financial assets, public property assessments and debt are available in the income registers further back in time. See under “Comparability over time”.

Base period

Not relevant for these statistics.

Unit of measure

DKK and number of persons

Reference period

The statistics contains information on wealth and debt on the 31st of December in the given year. Census data on age, gender and family units has the same date of reference.

Frequency of dissemination

Annual

Legal acts and other agreements

Much of the data is collected via the tax authorities based on §6 in the law on Statistics Denmark. The pension data is collected based on the law of The Danish National Bank, §14 a. The statistics also provides data for EU-SILC, that is regulated by EU regulation 2019/1700 and the OECD database.

Cost and burden

The statistics is primarily based on existing administrative registers. The data are collected from KMD, LD, the tax authorities, the Debt collection Agency and 130 pension companies. The pensions companies deliver the data via the Tax administration systems and the other organizations delivers directly to Statistics Denmark. It require some work by the various organizations to ensure that the data meets the standards agreed upon in our Memorandums of Understanding, compiling and transmitting the data. The work load has not been quantified.

Comment

None.