Share of UK household spend going on sports leisure, by disposable income group 2020
Disposable equivalent income
Within this statistic household incomes have been ranked in ascending order and divided into decile groups in order to examine expenditure patterns between different income groups. Income deciles divide the household income distribution into 10 equal parts. Households with the smallest income lie in the first decile and those with the largest income lie in the top decile. Disposable income is defined as the remaining income, after the removal of statutory deductions, income tax and national insurance contributions. The disposable equivalent income deciles used in this statistic were formed by dividing the household's income by the household's consumption units. This income concept assumes that income is evenly distributed between all members within the household, in relation to the aforementioned consumption needs. Equivalisation therefore takes into account that larger households are likely to need a higher income to achieve the same standard of living as households with fewer members.
Trend
This statistic presents a clear relationship between the percentage of weekly household expenditure spent on sports admissions; subscriptions; leisure class fees; and equipment hire, and the disposable equivalised income decile group within which a given household is contained. It can be inferred from this statistic that households with greater disposable equivalised income allocate a greater share of their weekly expenditure to the sports admissions, subscriptions, leisure class fees, and equipment hire, with the 10th decile group in this study allocating over 1.7 percent of their weekly household expenditures to these goods and services.
Interpretations
Although this relationship could be used to suggest that households with a greater the disposable equivalised income attribute a higher value to these goods and services than those within lower the disposable equivalised income decile groups, this relationship could also be interpreted as a function of the diminishing marginal utility of disposable income itself. It could be argued that there exists goods and services that are considered much more essential than sports admissions, subscriptions, leisure class fees and equipment hire, an example of one such essential good is sufficient fresh water provisions. As the expenditures associated with these essential goods and services will remain stable irrespective of the consumer’s total disposable equivalent income. These goods will necessarily demand a greater proportion of the total expenditures of households within the lower decile groups than those within the higher decile groups. The remaining disposable income of each respective household will therefore represent a greater share of the total disposable equivalised income of households within higher decile groups. If it were the case that households allocate an identical share of this remaining disposable income towards sports admissions; subscriptions; leisure class fees; and equipment hire, the share of the total disposable income allocated to these goods would be higher for households within higher decile groups.