Distribution of well-being: material well-being

16/07/2025 15:00

Material well-being concerns the extent to which people are able to meet their basic needs and shape their own lives. A person’s material situation is important for many aspects of their lives. A higher level of prosperity gives people more opportunities and choices, for example in terms of housing, social activities and health. A sound financial position also provides greater security.

The differences between population groups are measured in terms of the median standardised disposable income and median wealth. Material well-being is ultimately determined by the interaction between a household’s income, expenditure and wealth. Households use their disposable income to cover their expenses. If they do not spend all their income, they can save and increase their wealth. If their income is not sufficient to cover all their expenses, they need to use their savings and their overall wealth decreases. Since these indicators are measured at the household level, the characteristics of the household’s primary earner are considered here. For this reason, no separate figures are given for men and women.

Households with a primary earner aged under 25, with primary education or a prevocational secondary (VMBO) qualification, or with a primary earner born abroad have relatively low median household incomes.
The older the household’s primary earner is, the wealthier the household. Households whose primary earner was born in the Netherlands, with parents also born in the Netherlands, have significantly higher median wealth. Households with a primary earner with primary education or a VMBO qualification who was born abroad or has parents who were born in a country outside Europe have the lowest median wealth.

Standardised disposable income

Situation in 2023

The median household income in the Netherlands was 34,000 euros in 2023. The average income was higher, at 38,300 euros. The arithmetical mean is higher than the median because incomes at the top of the range pull the average up. In order to limit the influence of these high incomes, median incomes is used in all the descriptions below.

The level of household income depends in part on the age of the primary earner. Younger households generally have less to spend, because the adults in these households are just starting out in their career. The median income in the under-25s group is well below the average but rises with age. Households with a primary earner aged 35 to 64 have a higher-than-average disposable income. Once people retire, their incomes decline somewhat: over-65s households have less than average to spend.
Educational attainment is also clearly related to income. Primary earners with only primary education or a VMBO qualification have the lowest median income, while those with higher vocational or university education have the highest median income. The income of people with a senior general secondary (HAVO), pre-university (VWO) or senior secondary vocational (MBO) qualification lies in between.
Households with a primary earner of Dutch origin have the highest median income; migrant households have the lowest. In this regard, it makes a difference whether the primary earner originates from a European country or a non-European country. The figures were lower for migrant households from outside Europe than for migrant households from a European country. The income of the second-generation households was higher than that of migrant households but lower than that of people born in the Netherlands whose parents were also born in the Netherlands.

The characteristics of age, educational attainment and origin/country of birth are all correlated. For example, the percentage of people with higher vocational or university education is not the same in all age groups. The average age of primary earners also varies between origin/country-of-birth groups. When we take these correlations into account, it remains the case that more primary earners in the middle age groups have an income above the median than younger and older households, and that this is more likely to be the case in households with a primary earner with higher vocational education or university education than for people with a different education. As before, households with a primary earner born in the Netherlands whose parents were also born in the Netherlands are more likely to have a higher income than other households, although the differences are often somewhat smaller after correction.

Changes between 2019 and 2023

The median income of the population in 2023 was 3.7 percent higher than it was in 2019. The median income of the younger groups (primary earners aged under 35) grew by significantly more than that of the overall population between 2019 and 2023. This was also true for people born in the Netherlands with parents born outside Europe and for people who were themselves born outside Europe.

Capital

Wealth may be defined as assets minus liabilities. On 1 January 2023, the combined wealth of all 8.2 million households in the Netherlands amounted to 2,600 trillion euros, comprising 3,623 billion euros in total assets and 989 billion euros in total debt. The median wealth of Dutch households amounted to 133,300 euros. This was less than in the previous year, when it was 144,500 euros. The increase seen over recent years, which was primarily linked to the rapid rise in house prices, thus came to an end. Fluctuations in the values of owner-occupied homes have a major impact on household wealth. Nearly six out of ten households owned their homes in 2023, and owner-occupied homes accounted for the biggest share of assets, at 59 percent of wealth, followed by substantial interests in companies and bank deposits and savings. Mortgage debt was the largest debt item.

Situation in 2023

Older people are wealthier. Young people at the start of their working lives earn relatively little, are not able to put much money aside and often take on a substantial debt burden when they buy a home, particularly given the significant increases in house prices of recent years. Starting a family brings additional costs and makes it more difficult to accrue wealth. The youngest households had not accumulated any wealth at the beginning of 2023 therefore. As primary earners grow older, their financial position generally also improves appreciably. More work experience and better-paid jobs lead to higher income from labour, and inheritances can also contribute to further lifetime asset accumulation. At the same time, they repay an increasing proportion of their mortgage debt. The income of older households decreases when retirement age is reached, but they often own their own homes and have often repaid almost all of their mortgage debt. The group aged 75 and older was less wealthy than the 65 to 74-year-olds: supplementary pensions for the older group are considerably lower and home ownership is also lower.
In 2023, households whose primary earners had primary education or a VMBO qualification had relatively low median wealth. The same was true – but to a slightly lesser extent – for households with primary earners with a HAVO, VWO or MBO qualification. In contrast, households with primary earners with higher vocational or university education had high levels of wealth.
The median (disposable) household income of households with a primary earner born in the Netherlands, both of whose parents were also born in the Netherlands, was significantly higher than the median (disposable) income of the overall population. For households with a primary earner born in the Netherlands with one or both parents born in Europe (but not in the Netherlands), median wealth was slightly lower than that of the overall population. For other origin groups, median wealth was well below that of the population as a whole.

As with income, a supplementary analysis was performed in order to take account of the correlation between the characteristics of age, educational attainment and origin. This revealed that the differences are in some cases somewhat smaller after correction, but that the correlations identified do persist. Thus, the median wealth of older age groups is still higher than for younger groups, and that of people with higher vocational or university education is still higher than that of people with a different level of educational attainment. The median wealth of those with origins outside the

Netherlands also remains relatively low.

Average wealth also rises as disposable income rises: from 1,300 euros in the first income decile to 504,700 euros in the tenth and highest income decile. Of the total wealth of Dutch households, the lowest income decile held over 4 percent, while the highest income decile held 34 percent.

Changes between 2019 and 2023

The median wealth of the total population in 2023 was more than double what it had been in 2019. This increase is mainly due to the rise in the value of homes.

The following groups showed a different development compared with the change in the figure for the population as a whole:

The median wealth of households with a primary earner aged 35 to 44 showed an above average increase, nearly tripling. Other households, however, saw their median income increase by less than the average. Nevertheless, there were increases across all age categories.
Median wealth increased by less than average both for households with a primary earner with only primary or prevocational secondary education (VMBO) and for those with higher vocational or university education or equivalent. On the other hand, where primary earners had completed secondary vocational education (MBO) or equivalent, it grew by more than average.
Median wealth rose by more than average for primary earners born in the Netherlands whose parents were also born in the Netherlands. This was also the case for primary earners born in the Netherlands and with at least one parent born in Europe (excluding the Netherlands). For households with primary earners born in the Netherlands with at least one parent born outside Europe, there was a relatively large increase in median wealth. It should be pointed out that these households began from a different starting point – even with a high percentage increase, a modest amount of wealth remains modest.