Annex to Chapter 3 (data quality and availability)

• Author: Guio, A-C.; Marlier, E.; Frazer, H.
• Pages: 209-210

Feasibility Study for a Child Guarantee (FSCG) Final Report

209

Annex to Chapter 3 (data quality and availability)

Chapter 3 summarises the challenges faced by the general population of children an d the

TGs in terms of access to the five key social rights, on the basis of available data and

analyses.

The primary source of EU comparativ e data used for analysing access to most of the five

key social rights (childcare, housing, healthcare, and some aspects of nutrition) is the EU-

SILC, which is the reference source for thi s study and more broadly for most comparative

statistics on income distribution and social inclusion at EU level. It provides an nual data

for the 28 EU Member States.

In the FSCG we have produced, each time it was feasible, indicators for the whole

population of children and for the TGs identifiable in the EU- SILC, that is:

 low-income/socio-economic status children;

 children living in single-adult households;

 children living with at least one parent not born in the EU; and

 children severely limited, or limited but not severely, in th eir daily activities.361

Additional data sources specific to some groups (Roma children and children in institutions)

or to some PAs (PISA for education and the ‘health behaviour in school-aged children’

survey for nutrition) are also used.

In Chapter 2, we showed t he importance of considering both income poverty and child -

specific deprivation when l ooking at the ‘low-income/socio -economic status children’ sub-

group. However, data on child-specific deprivation were only collected in the 2014 EU-SILC

ad hoc module (and will be collected in future every three or four years , as this indicator

was officially agreed at the EU level). At the time of writing this report, data on child

deprivation are only available for 2014. In this report, when other survey years are used,

we therefore only use income poverty to characterise this sub-group.

It is also i mportant to keep in mind some key methodological warnings that are linked to

the nature of the EU-SILC (sample survey and coverage). These precauti ons are true for

the whole population in general and may be reinforced by the specific situation of some of

the TGs.

First, the EU-SILC are based on a sample of European households; therefore, the precision

of the point estimates depends to a certain extent on the sample size. This may be more

problematic for some TGs than for the national population. The table i n the Annex to

Chapter 3 presents th e sample size of each TG avail able in the EU -SILC, at the Member

State level.

According to Eurostat publication rules:

 an estimate should not be published if it is based on fewer than 20 sample observations

or if the non-response for the item concerned exceeds 50%; and

 an estimate should be published with a flag if it is based on 20 to 49 sample

observations or if non-response for the item concerned exceeds 20% and is lower than

or equal to 50%.

To be on the safe side, we have opted for not publishing any indicator based on fewer than

50 observations; that is, for Member States and groups highlighted in red in the table

below. The response rate for all the variables used was also checked and is higher than

the Eurostat threshold. Hence, it does not necessitate other precautions.

361 As explained in Chapter 2, the identification of children with disabilities in standard surveys is not an easy

task and the ‘limitations of daily activities for health reasons’ variable can only be considered as a proxy.