There is a correspondence between the financial situation of the parents’ household and the risk of poverty among today’s adults.
In 2019, in the EU, the at-risk-of-poverty rate was 23.0% among people with a “bad” financial situation in their household when they were around 14 years old. This percentage is 9.6 percentage points (pp) higher than the at-risk-of-poverty rate among those with a “good” financial situation in their childhood household.
This information comes from data published by Eurostat today on intergenerational transmission of disadvantages from the EU-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) ad hoc module.
Source dataset: ilc_igtp04
The at-risk-of-poverty rate for current adults with a bad financial situation in the childhood household ranged from 10.2% in Czechia to 40.1% in Bulgaria. On the other hand, the at-risk-of-poverty rate for current adults with a good financial situation ranged from 5.9% in Czechia to 16.6% in Spain.
In nearly all EU Member States, the at-risk-of-poverty rate was higher for people who had a bad financial situation in the past. The largest differences were recorded in Bulgaria (27.6 percentage point difference between bad and good financial situations in the past), Romania (17.1 pp) and Italy (14.8 pp).
At the other end of the scale, the smallest differences were recorded in Latvia (0.6 pp) and Austria (0.7 pp) as well as in Estonia (1.8 pp) and Finland (2.0 pp). In Denmark, the at-risk-of-poverty rate among people who had a good financial situation in the past was higher than people who had a bad financial situation.
For more information:
- The answer categories “very bad”, ‘’bad’’ and ‘‘moderately bad’’ were aggregated into one category entitled “bad” financial situation, and the categories ‘‘very good’’, ‘‘good’’ and ‘’moderately good’’ were aggregated into one category entitled “good” financial situation.
- Eurostat database on income and living conditions
- Eurostat dedicated section on income, social inclusion and living conditions
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