Website: Statistics: Social protection

The European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics (ESSPROS) was developed in the late 1970s by Eurostat jointly with representatives of the Member States of the European Union in response to the need for a specific instrument for statistical observation of social protection in the EC Member States.

ESSPROS is a common framework which enables international comparison of the administrative national data on social protection. It provides a coherent comparison between European countries of social benefits to households and their financing. The information collected concerns social protection benefits, receipts and expenditures, pensions' beneficiaries and net social benefits.

ESSPROS is composed of the core system and of modules.

Core system
The Core system contains annual data (starting from the year 1990) collected by Eurostat on:
- quantitative data: social protection receipts and expenditures by schemes
- qualitative database: metadata by scheme and detailed benefit.

Modules
The modules contain supplementary statistical information on particular aspects of social protection:
- pensions' beneficiaries
- net social benefits.