EU-SILC: Should We Make Do with What We Have?

In this Briefing Paper the focus is on the EU-SILC based on the question: What are the strengths and weakness of the pan-European data set EU-SILC which stands for ‘European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions’? How useful is this database when making international housing comparisons? The examples in this paper are based on my experience with the EU-SILC and illustrate a number of themes as setting norms for all countries and differences between housing and poverty research. My conclusion is that some of these measures transcend the database evaluation and are concerned with the definition of concepts. As long as there are no ‘better’ data alternatives, we should make do with what we have, but carefully and transparently.