The severe economic crises affecting Italy during the last decades have had serious effects on living conditions of residing households. Household disposable income decline was associated with a general decrease of the household consumption expenditure, concentrated in the period 2011-2013, and a rearrangement of its structure, with a slight increase in the expenditure share on food and non-alcoholic beverages (food share), well-known symptom of stronger budget constraints. Economic hardships affected households differently, producing inequality increase and an enlargement of the share of population suffering from material deprivation.

This paper attempts to shed light about the extent and the characteristics of the impact on household living conditions of the economic crises in Italy, and tries to describe the most affected subgroups of population. Results are based on the 2007-2013 data of the two main socioeconomic surveys conducted by Istat: the one on Income and Living conditions (EU-SILC) and the Household Budget Survey (HBS).

The general framework is deepened by modelling separately material deprivation and expenditure share of food and non-alcoholic beverages on a set of pooled data, in order to disentangle the time effect.