Communiqué, issue 4, 2004
Articles
- Towards the Lisbon objectives: The new four-year programme
- Occupational pension systems in Europe
- Quality of life in Germany and Poland
- Focusing on Europe’s working poor
- ERM records high levels of job losses
- Living to work, working to live
- Life satisfaction varies but Europeans are generally optimistic about the future
- Challenging times ahead
Previous issues of Communiqué
Employment is often claimed to be the best protection against poverty, but for a significant minority of workers in the EU, poverty and work go hand in hand.
One in five of workers on low pay in the EU is in the category of ‘working poor’, according to the Foundation’s report, Working poor in the European Union, the first European analysis of this hitherto relatively under-researched and neglected area. Data at EU-level confirm that 17% of the self-employed and 6% of employees in the former EU-15 fall below the standard poverty threshold. These figures are likely to be higher in the new Europe of 25 countries, given the higher incidence of relative poverty in the new Member States.
A new issue at EU-level
Working poverty is an issue that has attracted considerable attention in the United States since the 1970s but has only recently begun to be addressed at EU-level. Indicators started to appear in Europe in 2003 in the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) processes for both social inclusion and employment. The working poor may be defined as workers living in a household in which at least one member works
and where the total income of the household is still below the poverty line.
Opening a pan-European debate
The report was launched in Brussels on 1-2 July, at a seminar organised by the Foundation which brought together experts from the European institutions, policymakers, researchers, representatives from civil society, and the social partners. The seminar examined in detail who are the working poor, which categories of workers are most at risk and what is the extent of working poverty in the European Union. The objectives of the seminar were to contribute to a better understanding of the issues at stake and their interrelationships, to look at the approaches that are already available or could be made available to tackle these issues, and to promote debate on these issues at European level.