A key goal of the welfare state is to guarantee a minimum level of living standards for all households. To evaluate progress toward that goal, it is necessary to measure the prevalence rates of poverty and material deprivation. This section presents evidence on material deprivation and poverty.
The first graph presents a measure of households' perception of their living standards: the self-reported ease or difficulty of making ends meet.
The most common income-based measure of low living standards is the rate of relative poverty: the share of the population with income below 60% of median income is considered to be at risk of poverty.
The next graph presents the evolution of the share at risk of poverty for the full population and separately for three age groups.
The next graph presents the population share at risk of poverty in each region.
The next graph presents evidence about the reduction in the poverty-risk rate due to pensions and other social transfers. The graph shows the poverty-risk rate before pensions and other social transfers, the poverty-risk rate after pensions and before other social transfers, and the poverty-risk rate after pensions and other social transfers.
An alternative way to evaluate low living standards is to directly measure the share of households that are unable to afford a basket of goods or services that are considered essential to attain adequate living standards. A household that is unable to afford five out of thirteen such goods or services is said to experience material deprivation; if it cannot afford seven of these goods or services, then it is said to experience severe material deprivation.
The next graph shows the evolution of various measures of economic strain: whether a household is able to heat adequately, to face unexpected financial expenses, etc. and whether it has arrears in various payments.
The next graph presents the share that experiences material deprivation and severe material deprivation, for the full population, and separately for each age group.
The next graph presents the share of the population that experiences material deprivation and severe material deprivation in each region.