The share of households equipped with a bathroom/shower was, last year, 84.6%

Last year, the share of households equipped with a bathroom/shower was 84.6% and of those equipped with a sanitary unit 83.3%, according to an analysis of the living conditions of the population in Romania, in 2023, carried out by the Institute for National Statistics.   'On residential environments, the differences are very pronounced in both types of utilities, mainly due to the poor development of the public water supply system and the sewage and waste water treatment system in rural localities, compared to urban ones. Only 69.7% of rural households benefit from the advantages offered by the existence of a bathroom or a shower inside the house, the proportion also being preserved in the case of equipping rural houses with a sanitary unit inside the house (67.3%), it is mentioned in INS investigation.   Rural households whose household head is employed and who had greater financial resources, were able to secure the two types of utilities in a much higher proportion (86.2% of households headed by  employed persons households have a bathroom or shower in their home and 84.1% have a sanitary unit).   The share of households in the urban environment that have homes equipped with a bathroom or shower was higher by 12.7 % than in the rural environment, and that of homes equipped with a sanitary unit whose head of household is an employed person by over 14.6 % the corresponding rural percentages.   On the other hand, the INS reports that some households accuse the unpleasant effect of some factors that affect the areas where the houses are located. Among those factors, the noise produced by road, rail or air traffic (13.6% of all households), air pollution (11.5%),  noise produced by people in the neighbourhood or children (6.2%), the risk of incidents such as theft and aggression (6%)and, or commercial noise (2.7%).   Households in the urban environment were more affected by some of these factors in a higher proportion than those in the rural environment. Thus, most households in the urban environment were affectd by road traffic, rail traffic or air traffic (17.5%) and air polluthon or smells (14.9%).As in the case of urban environment, the households in the rural environment were affected, mainly, by noise caused by road, rail and air traffic(8.9%) air pollution or smells (7.3%).   The INS investigation shows that 11.5% of the households face one or more challenges regarding the residence. Among the most frequent affectd the quality of life are those regarding the damage to walls, floors, window frames (51.6% of all households that claim the existence of housing problems), insufficient light (44.1%), dampness in the walls, floors or the foundation of the house (35.7%) and leaks through the roof or walls (19.8%).   The comparison between the living environments show that, in general, the rural environment has a higher share of households with residence issues than the urban environment, especially with issues connected to damage to the window frames, walls or floors (69.0%)and dampness on the walls, floors , foundation (41.5%). These situations can be explained in a certain measure, by the larger number of individual houses in the rural localities.   The urban households are preoccupied especially by the fact that the houses lack sufficient natural light (62.4% of the households) and by the damage to the window frames, walls or floors in the residence (32.4%).   According to the quoted source, in 2023, 94.9% of the households lived as owners with a share of 96.5% in the rural environment, higher by 3 percentage points than in the urban environment. The share of households in rent or free of charge was 5.1% with a share of 6.5% in the urban environment, double against the one recorded in the rural environment.   More than half of the households (58.4%) lived in separate dwellings, the share being strongly influenceed by the rural environment, the rest of the households being in multi-dwelling buildings. The dwellings were almost entirely of the detached individual house type in the rural area (97.1%) and mainly apartments in buildings (72.8%) in the urban environment.   From the distribution of households according to the number of rooms in the main house, it can be seen that more than half of the households lived in houses with 3-5 rooms (56.9%). A significant share was also held by households whose usual residence was in houses with 1-2 rooms (41.2%).   If the urban environment has more than half of the households in 1 to 2 rooms (54.6%), the rural environment has 72.1% of the households in dwellings of 3 to 5 rooms.   The statistics were obtained through ' Inquiry on life quality'  organised in May 2023, INS says.