Perspectives of Deprivation in Europe: Is the South Left behind?

The European Pillar of Social Rights sets poverty and social exclusion as one of the three EU-level targets that must be achieved by 2030 in the areas of employment, skills and social protection. The number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE) should be reduced by at least 15 million by 2030, and out of them, at least 5 million should be children. The 2030 targets are consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They set out the common ambition for a strong social Europe and will allow the Commission to monitor Member States' progress in the context of the European Semester.

The presentation aims to compare country rankings based on severe material and social deprivation rates (SMSD) describing also its evolution during 2015-2022 across the EU countries. Our main premise is that certain group of countries (e.g. Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain) fall behind the rest of EU countries. This is also an empirical finding which is more indicative if examined in association with the other two sub-indicators (at risk of poverty and very low work intensity) composing the AROPE rate. Generally, the majority of the countries with the lowest income poverty rates, e.g. Czechia, Finland or Denmark, also have low material and social deprivation rates. Symmetrically, most of the countries with the highest rates of material and social deprivation (such as Romania, Bulgaria or Greece) have very high or very high poverty rates.

The empirical findings indeed show a clear divide across Europe. Although the number of people experiencing at least one of the three poverty and social exclusion risks (risk of poverty, severe material and social deprivation and/or living in a household with very low work intensity) has dropped since 2015, the figure underlines the challenge facing the EU.