Overall situation of the target group in member states

• Author: Meyer, Stefan; Fresno, José-Manuel; Bain, Skye
• Pages: 13-43

Target Group Discussion Paper Children living in precarious family situations

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3 Overall situation of the target group in Member States

From all the children living in precarious family situations, four sub-groups have been

selected. This Section assesses th e relative size of these sub-groups in order to better

understand precarious family situations and their overall poverty or social exclusion

situation in the Member States. It also assesses the extent to which the four sub-groups

face problems of access to nutrition, education, healthcare, housing, and ECEC. It is based

on analytical work undertaken for the FSCG, namely 28 Country Reports, five policy papers,

and the web consultation.29 It also draws on available national, EU, and other international

research in relation to work with ‘precarious family sit uations’.

3.1 Relative size of the target group and overall poverty/social

exclusion situation in the Member States

3.1.1 Sub-group ‘Low-income/socio-economic status children’

In the EU portfolio of commonly agreed indicators, most poverty indicators are broken

down by age. This is the case for th e at-risk-of-poverty rate (‘AROP’ indicator).30 As child

poverty skyrocket ed in all EU Member States in the wake of the Great Recession 2007-

2017, applied social scientists and policy-makers deliberated on measures to better capture

child poverty, in terms of both statistics and policy responses.31 Using child-specific

indicators usefull y complements the picture provided by household-centred indicators of

poverty that may not adequately reflect the specific situation of children.

In March 2018, two indicators of child deprivation were agreed at EU level. T hey are now

part of the EU’s monitoring instruments. The first indicator is a child deprivation rate. The

second an indicator of child deprivation intensity. The adoption of these child-specific

indicators is an important step towards honouring the commitment by the EC and Member

States to incl ude (at least) one indicator on ‘child well-being’ i n the EU portfolio of social

indicators and to improving the EU toolbox needed for monitoring progress in the

implementation of the 2013 EU Recommendation on ‘Investing i n Children: breaking the

cycle of disadvantage’ (see Section 2). The data on child deprivation were collected in an

ad hoc module of the EU-SILC (EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) 2014 and

will be collected every 3-4 years from 2021.

• The child deprivation rate is the percentage of children aged between 1 and 1532

years who suffer from the enforced lack of at least 3 items out of a list of 17

(unweighted) items – 12 items specifically focused on the situation of children and

5 items related to the household where they live.33

29 See in the references a comprehensive list of all reports generated so far by the FSCG exercise.

30 In line with the EU definition, the at-risk-of-poverty rate (AROP) of children is the proportion of children living

in households whose equivalised income is below 60% of the national median household equivalised income.

Thus it measures monetary poverty as the relation of household income to median national income levels (40%

for ‘extreme’ and 60% for being at risk). The ‘AROPE’ indicator on the risk of poverty and social exclusion is a

composite measurement, which adds to the AROP indicator the dimension of material deprivation and work-

intensity in the household.

31 Eurostat 2012; Atkinson 2015; Cantillon et al. 2017.

32 For most ‘children’s items’, the information relates to children aged between 1 and 15 (i.e. children’s items

are collected in households with at least one child in this age bracket). Therefore, the child-specific deprivation

indicator (rate and intensity) covers only children aged between 1 and 15.

33 For the individual child: some new clothes; two pairs of shoes; fresh fruit and vegetables daily; meat,

chicken, fish daily; suitable books; outdoor leisure equipment; indoor games; leisure activities; celebrations;

invite friends; school trips; and holiday. For the household: replace worn-out furniture; avoid arrears; internet

access (adults); home adequately warm; car. For a discussion of this indicator, see Guio et al. 2017.

Target Group Discussion Paper Children living in precarious family situations

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• The child deprivation intensity is the average number of enforced lacks among

deprived children (aged between 1 and 15); that is, among children lacking at least

3 items out of the 17 retained items.34

Child income poverty and child-specific deprivation are only imperfectly correlated. Figure

1 provides an estimation of the proportion of children confronted with ‘economic fragility’,

as defined by the union of b oth indicators; that is, children suffering either from income

poverty only (and not from deprivation), or from child-specific deprivati on only (i.e. not

from income poverty) or from both child-specific deprivation and in come poverty.

Figure 1: Percentage of children deprived and/or income-poor ; EU-28, 2014

Note: Percentage of children (aged 1-15) who lack at least 3 items (out of 17) and/or who suffer from income

poverty, EU-28 Member States, 2014.

Source: EU-SILC 2014, UDB version November 2016, own calculations.

Figure 1 shows the degree of overlap between the two problems and the relative weight of

each of them. For example, in Luxembourg and in Nordic countries the proportion of

children suffering from income poverty among those who are income-poor and/or deprived

is high, whereas in east European countries the prevalence of child deprivation is

proportionally larger. This is due to the fact that the income-poverty rate is a relative

measure (i.e. the income-poverty threshold varies from country to cou ntry) whereas the

child-specific deprivation indicator is a more absolute measure (based on the same basket

of i tems in all EU countries). Reachin g the income-poverty threshold in these countri es

does not allow an escape from child-specific deprivation. It is therefore important to

combine both indicators to adequately capture the diversity of economic fragility in the EU

countries. Figure 2 presents, for each Member State, the share of children suffering from

child-specific deprivation and the share of income-poor children.

34 In this report, the information covered by these 17 items is used at the aggregate level (child-specific

deprivation rate and intensity) to quantify the proportion of children suffering from economic vulnerability. In

order to analyse the situation in each of the policy areas of the FSCG, deprivation can be measured as well at

the level of individual items, to analyse (for example) aspects of adequate nutrition or education costs.

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