Materially deprived at risk of poverty

Although there is no relationship across countries between the proportion of the population who are at risk of poverty and those who are materially deprived, it is still the case that those who are materially deprived are far more likely to be at risk of poverty than those who are not. Nevertheless, in most countries, a minority of those who are materially deprived are at risk of poverty (in the sense of having income below 60% of the median in the country in question). The only exceptions are Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg (Table 8). Indeed, in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, only around a quarter of those identified as being materially deprived were also at risk of poverty in 2009, implying that the great majority of the materially deprived have income above 60% of the median. This reflects the fact that many people with income above this level in these countries have relatively low levels of income from an EU-wide perspective.

Similarly, while those who are materially deprived are much more likely to be at persistent risk of poverty than those who are not materially deprived, it is still the case that, except in Luxembourg, a minority of those concerned were in this position in 2009. Indeed, in Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, the proportion was only around 13-14%, suggesting that there is almost no relationship between being materially deprived and being at persistent risk of poverty in those countries.

There is slightly more of a relationship between the persistence of material deprivation and the persistence of poverty, though only in Luxembourg were more than half of the persistently deprived at persistent risk of poverty in 2009. In the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Netherlands, the figure was under 20%.

See Tables