Eurostat: 49 percent of Romanian children aged less than 18 at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2011

Newsroom 27/02/2013 | 15:53

According to an Eurostat report on the risk of poverty or social exclusion, children are at greater risk than the rest of the population. In 2011, the highest shares of those aged less than 18 who were at risk of poverty or social exclusion were registered in Bulgaria (52 percent), followed by Romania (49 percent) and Latvia (44 percent). The report says that 27 percent of children aged less than 18 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU27, compared with 24 percent of adults (aged 18-64) and 21 percent of the elderly (aged 65 and over).

The report takes into consideration several factors affecting child poverty, such as the composition of the household in which the children live and the labor market situation of their parents. Almost one child in two with parents of low education level is at risk of poverty in the EU27. The largest differences between the share of children at risk of poverty who lived in a low and in a high education level household were found in Romania (78 percent of children in a low education level household compared with 2 percent in a high education level household),followed by the Czech Republic (76 percent and 5 percent) and Slovakia (77 percent and 7 percent).

The statistics has also shown that the share of children at risk of poverty who lived with native born parents was lowest in Denmark and Austria (both 8%) and highest in Romania (33 percent).