The year of 2004 is the international family year, which is a good opportunity to disseminate some singularities about the expenditure patterns of the large families (five or more persons), as it is known that the average dimension of
120 Revista de Estudos Demográficos, nº 35 the Portuguese households is one of the highest in the EU15. The main source is the Household Budget Survey (HBS).
According to the referred source, in 2000 the large families were close to one in ten families. As it will be shown, the average individual expenditure in large households was 25% below the remaining Portuguese households. The influence of the presence of children will also be explored.
There will be some results by income quintiles, focusing the expenditure patterns of the less favoured large families, as well as some details about the distribution between the expenditure divisions of the reference nomenclature.
The current analysis is based on an individual equivalent scale, which allows comparability between household’s individual expenditure, after deducting the economy of scale effects felt in bigger households.

keywords: large family; less favoured large family; expenditure; expenditure patterns, Household Budget Survey