Distribution of well-being: material well-being

10/07/2026 06:30

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 in which the primary earner is under 25 years of age, those in which the primary earner has only completed primary education or VMBO education, and those in which the primary earner was born outside the Netherlands, all have a relatively low median household income.
The older the primary earner in a household, the higher the wealth of that household. Households in which the primary earner has a higher education degree (HBO or university) have the highest wealth. Households with younger primary earners and those with a primary earner born outside the Netherlands have the least wealth.

Standardised disposable income

The median household income in the Netherlands was 36.5 thousand euros in 2024, which was 8 percent higher than in 2019. Average income was higher, at 41.9 thousand euros. The average is higher than the median because households are unevenly distributed across the income ladder: there are more households with incomes below the average than those with incomes above it. The median income provides a more accurate representation of the ‘normal’ income.

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 careers. Household income in the under-25 group is well below the median income. As people get older, household income rises. The income of households with a primary earner aged between 35 and 64 is above the median. There is a slight drop in income following retirement, and households headed by someone aged 75 or over have an income below the median. Among the youngest households (in which the main earner is younger than 25), median income grew substantially more than average between 2019 and 2024.

Educational attainment is also clearly correlated with income. Primary earners whose highest level of educational attainment is primary education or prevocational secondary education (VMBO) have the lowest median income, while those with a higher education degree have the highest median income. The income of people with a senior general secondary education (HAVO), pre-university education (VWO) or senior vocational education (MBO) diploma lies in between.

Households with a primary earner of Dutch origin have the highest median income; migrant households have the lowest. For the latter, it makes a difference whether the primary earner comes from a European country or a non-European country. The figures are lower for migrant households from outside Europe than for migrant households from a European country. The income of the second-generation households is higher than that of first-generation households, but lower than that of people born in the Netherlands to parents who were also born in the Netherlands. Compared to 2019, the incomes of people born in the Netherlands to parents born outside Europe and those born outside Europe themselves increased by more than the average.

Wealth

Wealth may be defined as assets minus debts. On 1 January 2024, the combined wealth of the Netherlands’ 8.3 million households amounted to 2,754 billion euros, comprising 3,770 billion euros of assets and 1,015 billion euros of debts. Median wealth increases with disposable income, rising from 1.5 thousand euros in the first and lowest income group to 520.2 thousand euros in the tenth and highest income group. Around 4 percent of total household wealth in the Netherlands was held by the lowest income group, while the highest income group held nearly 35 percent. In 2024, median household wealth in the Netherlands was 135.5 thousand euros. This was slightly less than in 2023, when it was 137 thousand euros. Compared to 2019, the median wealth of all households had more than doubled by 2024. This increase was mainly due to the rise in the value of homes. Nearly six out of ten households owned their homes in 2024, and owner-occupied homes accounted for the biggest share of assets, at 58 percent of wealth, followed by substantial interests in companies and bank deposits and savings. Mortgage debt was the largest debt item.

Wealth increases with age. 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 relatively high debt burden when they buy a home, particularly given the significant rise in house prices in recent years. Starting a family results in additional costs and makes it more difficult to accrue wealth. Consequently, the youngest households had hardly accumulated any wealth at the beginning of 2024. As primary earners grow older, their financial position also improves appreciably. More work experience and better-paid jobs lead to higher income from labour, and inheritances can also contribute to further lifetime wealth accumulation. At the same time, people repay an increasing proportion of their mortgage debt as they grow older. Although the income of older households decreases when they reach retirement age, they often own their own homes and have typically repaid almost all of their mortgage debt. The group aged 75 and over is less wealthy than those aged 65 to 74, as supplementary pensions for the oldest group are considerably lower and fewer in this group own their home. The median wealth of households with a primary earner aged 35 to 44 shows an above average increase, having nearly tripled since 2019. Other households, however, saw their median income increase by less than the average. Nevertheless, there were increases across all age groups compared to 2019.

In 2024, households whose primary earners had only completed primary education or VMBO had relatively low levels of wealth. The median wealth of households with a primary earner with a HAVO, VWO or MBO diploma was comparable to the median wealth of all households combined. Meanwhile, households with a primary earner with a higher education degree had relatively high levels of wealth. Households in which the primary earner had only completed primary education or VMBO saw below-average increases in wealth, as did those where the main earner had a higher education degree. Households in which the primary earner had completed an MBO degree or equivalent, on the other hand, saw above-average increases in wealth.

The median wealth of households of Dutch origin was substantially higher than the median wealth of all households in the Netherlands. The median wealth of second-generation migrants from Europe was slightly lower than that of all households. For other origin groups, median wealth was lower still. Compared to 2019, median wealth among households of Dutch origin increased by less than the average. The same is true of second-generation migrants from Europe. Second-generation migrants from outside Europe experienced a relatively large increase in wealth, as did migrants from outside Europe. Nevertheless, the wealth levels of the latter group remained relatively low – even if a small amount of wealth increases by a high percentage, the amount itself remains small.