Household Production and Consumption in Finland 2001

Production for own use accounts for 88 per cent of extended household
sector output. The share of volunteer work is 6.5 per cent. Production for own
use accounts for an ever greater share of gross value added, i.e. 91 per cent,
with volunteer work representing 8 per cent of this.
Household disposable income increases by some 80 per cent by virtue of
household production, i.e. from 64 billion to 116 billion euros. This, however,
is an imputed increase; households do not actually get to see this money. It
may be described as a “compensation” that materialises in the consumption of
the goods and services that households have produced for themselves. On the
other hand, if households wanted to maintain the same level of consumption
without own production, they would have to buy the corresponding products
in the market and the money they spent on these goods and services means
that they would have less to spend on something else. So although the increase
in disposable income is only imputed, its impacts are very real. Volunteer work
accounts for 5 billion euros of this imputed income. It is not the household
that has produced this work that reaps the benefits, but at a national level the
beneficiaries are nonetheless private households.
Extended household consumption
Household consumption is also increased. It is a key characteristic of services
that their production and consumption are closely intertwined with each other
(SNA 1993, 6.8). It follows logically that households also consume the services
that they produce for their own use (with the exception of neighbourly help
and other volunteer work, which is consumed in some other household).
Extended household consumption consists of the consumption of the final
products purchased by households and of the consumption of products that
households have produced for themselves. Here we need to take into account
the items already included in the core national accounts under consumption,
i.e. the ingredients, raw materials and other intermediate consumption goods
and services, as well as capital goods purchased by households in 2001. These
items must be subtracted from consumption to avoid duplicate counting. In
addition to household consumption, the figures include the consumption
expenditure of general government, the biggest items of which are health
expenditure and education. Non-profit institutions serving households include
religious associations, sports clubs, etc. The individual consumption
expenditure of general government and non-profit institutions is financed
through social income transfers. Adding them to household consumption
expenditure results in individual consumption expenditure. The figures are as
follows (excluding collective consumption):
64 Statistics Finland National Consumer Research Centre