Gross disposable income, final consumption expenditure and saving of "ordinary" households for the year 2003 are broken down according to four criteria : standard of living quintile, household composition, age of the head of the household and professional category of the head of the household.

The participation of Insee to an international expert group led by OECD and Eurostat to measure disparities between households in a national account framework, has led to the introduction of new criteria : the main source of income and household type classification. In addition, the criteria "Size of the urban unit of residence of the household" is introduced to have a geographic dimension.

The gross disposable income includes income from economic activity (compensation of employees; profits of self-employed business owners), property income excluding unrealized and realized capital gains (dividends, interests, and rents), transfers (notably insurance benefits net of premiums paid) and social benefits (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.). From those incomes, are substracted taxes (mainly income tax, occupancy tax and two levies on taxable income earmarked for social-insurance funds : the Contribution Sociale Généralisée [CSG] and the Contribution au Remboursement de la Dette Sociale [CRDS]) and social contributions.

Income flows designated as "private transfers", have been taken into account for they are not uniformly distributed among households. They consist solely of transfers in cash. Transfers in kind have been excluded of these "private transfers", as well as inheritances and gifts.

Households consumption expenditure comprises expenditures funded directly by households. It does not include the share of health, education, and housing expenditures financed by the general government (analysed in the item "Social transfers in kind, adjusted disposable income and actual final consumption of households in 2003"). On the other hand, it includes imputed rents, that is to say the housing service provided to themselves by the owner-occupier households. Their income and consumption are accordingly increased by imputed rents, which are defined as the rents that would be charged in the private rental sector for dwellings with similar characteristics.

The share of disposable income not used for consumption expenditure constitutes the saving. The saving ratio is households saving divided by gross disposable income.

The breakdown of the income, consumption and saving by category of households was carried out using several INSEE surveys relating to the households. These surveys refer only to the ordinary households resident in the french mainland. The resulting tables by category of households thus correspond to this scope. An additional table offers supplementary references on the field of the national accounts which includes the persons living in the overseas departments and the persons living in collective households.