People who find it difficult to keep their home warm, or pay rent or mortgages, and other bills and unexpected expenses are considered to be severely materially deprived.
Matthew Vella
At least 15.5% of Malta's population was composed of people at risk of poverty in 2010, according to data released by the EU's statistical arm Eurostat, just one percentile below the EU27's average of 16.4%.
Persons at-risk-of-poverty live in a household where disposable income is less than 60% of the national median disposable income, after social benefits.
At least 84,000 people in Malta are at risk of poverty, severely materially deprived, or living in a household where few people are gainfully employed. This figure grew from 20.2 to 20.6% of the population from 2009 to 2010.
Severely materially deprived persons were estimated at 5.7% of the population, less than the EU average of 8%. These people have living conditions constrained by a lack of resources and can find it hard to pay rents or bills and other unexpected expenses, eat meat and fish every other day, afford a car and other household appliances or phones, keep their home adequately warm, or take one week's holiday away from home.
When split by age group, children at risk of poverty formed 24% of this social group, while 19% were aged 18-64, and the elderly accounted for 21.9% - just over the EU average of 19.8%.
In 2010, 115 million people, or 23.4% of the population, in the EU27 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
In 2010, the highest shares of persons being at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in Bulgaria (42%), Romania (41%), Latvia (38%), Lithuania (33%) and Hungary (30%), and the lowest in the Czech Republic (14%), Sweden and the Netherlands (both 15%), Austria, Finland and Luxembourg (all 17%).
Looking at each of the three elements defining at risk of poverty or social exclusion, 16% of the population in the EU27 in 2010 were at-risk-of-poverty after social transfers, meaning that their disposable income was below their national at-risk-of-poverty threshold. The highest at-risk-of-poverty rates were observed in Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and Spain (all 21%), and the lowest in the Czech Republic (9%), the Netherlands (10%), Slovakia, Austria and Hungary (all 12%).
In the EU27, 8% of the population were severely materially deprived, meaning that they had living conditions constrained by a lack of resources such as not being able to afford to pay their bills, keep their home adequately warm, or take a one week holiday away from home1. The share of those severely materially deprived varied significantly among Member States, ranging from 1% in Luxembourg and Sweden to 35% in Bulgaria and 31% in Romania.
10% aged 0-59 in the EU27 lived in households where the adults worked less than 20% of their total work potential during the past year. The United Kingdom and Belgium (both 13%) had the largest proportions of those living in very low work intensity households, and Luxembourg, Sweden and the Czech Republic (all 6%) the lowest.
Children were at greater risk of poverty or social exclusion than the rest of the population. In the EU27 in 2010, 27% of children aged below 18 were affected by at least one of the three forms of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 23% of the working age population (aged 18-64) and 20% of the elderly (aged 65 and over). Children were most affected in 20 Member States, while the elderly were the most touched in Bulgaria, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden. In Denmark, it was the working age population which was the most affected.