volwasseneequivalent

Volwassenequivalent, or adult equivalent, is a method used in statistics and economics to adjust household resources for differences in size and composition. The purpose is to enable fairer comparisons of incomes, expenditures, or living standards across households by accounting for economies of scale in sharing housing and other necessities. The basic idea is to assign a weight to each household member and sum these weights to obtain the household’s adult-equivalent size. A household’s income or expenditure is then expressed per adult equivalent, rather than per person, to allow cross-household comparisons that are not biased by simply having more people.

Various equivalence scales exist. The most commonly used are derived scales such as the OECD equivalence scales, including the modified OECD scale. These scales generally assign one unit to the first adult, a smaller unit to additional adults, and another smaller unit to children; the exact numbers differ by scale. For example, in some scales two adults plus two children may total roughly three to four adult equivalents, depending on the chosen weights.

In the Netherlands, the term volwassenequivalent is widely used in official statistics to standardize income or poverty measures, as well as in social research. The approach supports policy analysis by enabling comparability across households, though it also has limitations, since weights are simplifications and may not reflect all differences in needs or costs between households.

See also: equivalence scale, poverty line, cost of living.