Quarter Of Europeans At Risk Of Poverty Or Social Exclusion

The reduction of the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion is one of the key targets of the EU's Europe 2020 strategy yet a quarter of the population of the EU, 24.8% or 124.5m people, were at risk of one of three conditions: at risk of poverty; severley materially deprivation; or living in households with very low work intensity.

The figures are from Eurostat and are based on the EU-SILC survey. Each of the three elements contributing to being at risk of poverty or social exclusion can be looked at separately. It can be seen that 17% of the EU28 population's disposable income was below their national poverty threshold levels. In other words they were at risk of poverty after social transfers.

Severe material deprivation was experienced by 10% of the EU which means that their living conditions were severely constrained by a lack of resources. They could not pay their bills, keep the home warm of take a one week holiday away from home.

The third condition, living in households with very low work intensity was reported by 10% of population of the EU28. What it means is that 10% of the people lived in households where the adults worked less than 20% of their work potential during the past year.

Europe 2020 Strategy Indicators

The European Council's Europe 2020 Strategy objectives as expressed in the 5 targets of employment, research and development, climate change and energy, education and poverty and social exclusion monitored on the basis of Eurostat headline indicators are the subject of a statistical bulletin from Eurostat.

Employment is the first key objective of the Europe 2020 Strategy. The target set for 2020 is 75% of those aged 20-64 in EU27. The employment rate increased from 66.6% in 2000 to 70.3% in 2008 but follwing the economic crisis it fell again to 68.6% in 2011.

Research and development expenditure has grown from 1.86% of GDP in 2000 to 2% in 2010. The target for 2020 is 3% of GDP.

The headline indicators for climate change and energy have three elements: greenhouse gas reduction, increase in the share of renewable energy in final energy consumption and an increase in energy efficiency. The greenhouse gas target for 2020 is a 20% reduction on 1990 levels. A steady decrease has resulted in a decline of 15% by 2010 on 1990. The target for renewable energy is a 20% share of gross final energy consumption. It has grown steadily from 8.1% in 2004 to 12.5% in 2010. The target for energy efficiency for 2020 for the EU27 is primary energy consumption of 1474m tonnes of oil equivalent (mTOE). The level has fluctuated but increased from 1560mTOE to 1650mTOE in 2010.

The objectives for education for 2020 are a decrease in the number of early school leavers and an increase in the number of people completing tertiary education. The target for 2020 is to reduce the share of the population aged 18-24 with at most lower secondary education and not currently in tertiary education or training to below 10% and to increase the share of those aged 30-34 in the EU27 having completed tertiary education to 40% or more. The share of early school leavers has decreased continuously from 17.6% in 2000 to 13.5% in 2011. The share of those having completed tertiary education has also increased steadily from 22.4% in 2000 to 34.6% in 2011.

The fifth key objective is a reduction of poverty and social exclusion, including monetary poverty, material deprivation and lack of access to the labour market. The 2020 target is to reduce the number of people affected by at least one of the three dimensions of poverty by 20m. The number has decreased from 123.9m in 2005 to 113.8m in 2009 but increased again to 115.7m in 2010.

Poverty And Social Exclusion In Europe

Eurostat has released details of a new publication 'Income and living conditions in Europe' issued in connection with the closing conference of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion due to take place 16-17 December 2010. It is based on data from the EU-SILC survey.

One of the key targets of the Europe 2020 strategy is to lift at least 20m people in the EU27 out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion. Progress towards this is measured using a combination of three measures: persons at risk of poverty; severely materially deprived persons and persons living in households with very low work intensity. In 2008 nearly 116m people in the EU27 were affected by at least one of the three criteria of social exclusion and nearly 7m fall under all three criteria.

In the EU27 16.5% of the population, a total of 81m people, were at risk of poverty after social transfers. The country with the highest percentage of the total population in this category was Latvia (25.6%), the lowest percentage was in the Czech Republic (9%). In the UK 18.8% of the population or 11.4m people fell into this category.

Bulgaria (41.2%) had the highest percentage of severely materially deprived persons and lowest percentage was in Luxembourg (0.7%). In the EU27 8.5% of the population or 41.5m people fell into this category. The UK figure was 4.5% or 2.7m people.

Ireland (13.6%) had the highest percentage of people living in households with very low work intensity. The lowest percentage was in Cyprus (4.1%). In the UK 4.8m people, 10.2% of the population, were in this category. The EU27 percentage was 9%. The total number of people in this category in the EU27 was 34.2m.