Housing survey

The purpose of the housing survey is to describe housing conditions of households and their housing expenditure.
The housing survey has a number of objectives:
- to find out about the stock of main residences in France and how it has changed since the previous survey, by type of dwelling (detached, multi-family), tenure status (owner, renter, council tenant, etc.) and urban unit;
- describe the housing conditions of households: comfort (sanitation, heating, insulation), size and settlement, occupancy status, housing expenditure (rent, service charges, loan repayments, assistance received, works, occupancy rate, etc.), assessments of housing conditions, residential plans, recent mobility, other dwellings owned, etc;
- describe the occupants of the dwellings themselves: household size, composition, situation in relation to the labour market, income, any children of the occupants living outside the home, etc;
- assess household spending on housing (purchase or rental, work carried out);
- evaluating public housing policies.

Censuses do of course have the advantage of covering a larger sample but they do not provide information on rents, charges, financing plans, income, and many other features of French people's quality of housing (especially the most poorly housed) which are covered in detail in the housing survey.

It has many uses: structural data for projects, detailed study of sub-populations and modelling behaviours, short to medium term analyses or analyses in pseudo-panels based on chronological comparisons between successive surveys.

The survey has been carried out since 1955.

Firstly carried out in metropolitan France, it was extended to the overseas departments in 2006 and then to Mayotte in 2013.

In 2020, the Statistical Data and Studies Departement has conducted the survey in metropolitan France.

In 2023-2024, the housing survey has be conducted by Insee over the entire French territory.

Survey

Punctual or aperiodic

Data and Statistical Studies Departement