Publication Details

Back 79 million EU citizens were at-risk-of-poverty in 2007, of whom 32 million were also materially deprived - Issue number 46/2009


In 2007, 16% of the population was assessed to be at-risk-of-poverty following the concept of relative poverty adopted in the European Union. The risk of poverty is more than 30% for the elderly population in Cyprus, Estonia and Latvia. Among children, the at-risk-of poverty rate is highest in Italy, Romania, Spain and Poland. Social protection reduces poverty by 36% on average in the EU. A new indicator of material deprivation completes the social exclusion picture. New Member States (Romania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Lithuania and Slovakia) have the highest shares of the population who are materially deprived. Finally, 32 million people could be considered as both at-risk-of-poverty and materially deprived, i.e. with a very high likelihood of poverty and social exclusion.

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Release date: 17 June 2009

Additional information

Product code: KS-SF-09-046
Theme: Population and social conditions
Collection: Statistics in Focus