Working poor
Individuals are at risk of in-work poverty when their equivalised yearly disposable income is below 60% of the national household median income level. The working poor represent a substantial group in Europe. Latest Eurostat figures show that in 2019, 9% of all workers lived in households that are at risk of poverty. Factors contributing to working poverty are low pay, household characteristics, quality of employment and gender, and other individual characteristics.
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29 November 2022
The strict public health restrictions implemented by governments in 2020 to control the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed working life and continued to shape it over the two years that followed. Between March and November 2021, over 70,000 interviews were carried out in 36 countries by the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS), a high-quality probability-based survey. The aim was to provide a detailed picture of the working lives of Europeans in that exceptional time.
The report documents the working conditions of Europeans in 2021. It examines variation in job quality and identifies its positive association with well-being, health, work engagement and the financial sustainability of work. It highlights the divergences in the experiences of workers depending on workers’ own attributes and their place in the workforce. From this analysis, the report aims to derive lessons for the future, particularly in relation to the enduring marks on how we work and the implications for work organisation, the quality of work, and the interaction between work and private life.
7 September 2022
In collecting information on essential services, the European Commission requested Eurofound to provide input on certain aspects of existing and planned measures in the Member States to improve access to essential services in reference to Principle 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. For this exercise, the scope was on energy services, public transport, and digital communications, and the focus on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion (in most cases in practice, people on low incomes). This paper provides an overview of the measures in the Member States based mainly on the inputs from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents, collected in February–March 2022. The paper reviews the measures across the entire EU by clustering the major types or targets of the measures to make essential services accessible, and by succinctly listing main country-level examples. It provides information for understanding the diversity and similarities of the measures applied and suggests pointers on areas where policy action could be developed.
10 June 2021
This report summarises how minimum wage rates for 2021 were set during 2020 – the year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews the difficulties faced by national decision-makers and how they reacted to the challenges of the economic and social fall-out of the pandemic when making decisions regarding the minimum wage. It maps the extent to which minimum wages were referred to in COVID-19-related support measures. It discusses advances made on the EU initiative on adequate minimum wages and maps the reactions of the EU-level social partners and national decision-makers. The report is accompanied by two complementary working papers: one providing an analysis of developments for low-paid employees and minimum wage workers over the past decade; the other summarising the most recent research on minimum wages in EU countries, Norway and the UK.
Highlights for Working poor
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
30 November 2018
Concept and practice of a living wage
A living wage has been defined as a measure of income that allows an employee a basic but socially acceptable standard of living. In recent decades, living wage initiatives have emerged in a small number of mainly English-speaking countries, including the UK and Ireland. These initiatives have developed in response to the inadequacy of income for many working households reliant on existing statutory minimum wage rates. They set out a methodology for calculating a wage that would allow wage earners and their dependents to live with dignity, in line with the fair wage provisions set out in the European Pillar of Social Rights adopted in 2017. This report aims to provide policymakers with a practical guide to the living wage concept.
13 October 2017
More attention must be given to Europe’s working poor
5 September 2017
In-work poverty in the EU
The ‘working poor’ are a substantial group, the latest estimate putting 10% of European workers at risk of poverty, up from 8% in 2007. This report describes the development of in-work poverty in the EU since the crisis of 2008, picking up where an earlier Eurofound report on this subject, published in 2010, ended and looks at what countries have done to combat the problem since. This endeavour is complicated by the policy focus on employment as a route out of poverty, underplaying the considerable financial, social and personal difficulties experienced by the working poor. The increase in non-standard forms of employment in many countries appears to have contributed to rising in-work poverty. The report argues the case for greater policy attention and action on the part of governments, employers and social partners, not only through direct measures associated with both the minimum and living wage, progressive taxation, in-work benefits and social assistance, but also and more importantly through indirect measures such as more flexible working arrangements, housing, upgrading of skills and childcare.
13 March 2017
Income inequalities and employment patterns in Europe before and after the Great Recession
This report addresses growing concerns about income inequalities in academic and policy debates by offering a comprehensive study of income inequalities during the years of the Great Recession starting in 2008–2009 (income data relating to 2004–2013). It has the twofold objective of adopting an EU-wide perspective and providing an updated picture of inequalities across different sources of income and in most Member States. The results show that EU-wide income inequality declined notably prior to 2008, driven by a strong process of income convergence between European countries – but the Great Recession broke this trend and pushed inequalities upwards both for the EU as a whole and across most countries. While previous studies have pointed to widening wage differentials as the main driver behind the long-term trend towards growing household disposable income inequalities across many European countries, this report identifies unemployment and its associated decline in labour income as the main reason behind the inequality surges occurring in recent years. Real income levels have declined and the middle classes have been squeezed from the onset of the crisis across most European countries. The role played by the family pooling of income in reducing inequalities and the impact of European welfare policies in cushioning the effect of economic turbulences on the distribution of income are also explored.
4 August 2016
Inadequate housing in Europe: Costs and consequences
This report aims to improve understanding of the true cost of inadequate housing to EU Member States and to suggest policy initiatives that might help address its social and financial consequences. The full impact of poor housing tends to be evident only in the longer term, and the savings to publicly funded services, the economy and society that investment in good quality accommodation can deliver are not always obvious. While housing policies are the prerogative of national governments, many Member States face similar challenges in this field. In some, projects to improve inadequate housing have already provided valuable practical experience that can usefully be shared, and this report presents eight such case studies. While improving poor living conditions would be costly, the report suggests the outlay could be recouped quite quickly from savings on healthcare and a range of publicly funded services – in the EU as a whole, for every €3 invested in improving housing conditions, €2 would come back in savings in one year.
With contributions from Robert Anderson, Pierre Faller, Jan Vandamme (Eurofound) and Madison Welsh.
2 February 2011
Working poor in Europe
Being in work greatly reduces the risk of poverty. Nevertheless, in the European Union, 8% of the employed population fell into the category of ‘working poor’ in 2007, in the sense of having an income below 60% of the national average. The proportion varies markedly across countries and social groups. In most countries, the issue of working poor is not a policy priority of either the government or the social partners, although it can be included in general policies to combat poverty and social exclusion. Although there is little evidence to prove it to date, the working poor are likely to have been particularly affected by the current economic recession.
Experts on Working poor
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Daphne Ahrendt
Senior research managerDaphne Ahrendt is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. She is the coordinator of the survey management and development activity. In 2020, she initiated Eurofound’s Living and Working in the EU e-survey and now leads the 2026 European Quality of Life Survey, which she has worked on since the survey started in 2003. With over 30 years of experience in international survey research, she is also a member of the GESIS Scientific Advisory Board. Beyond surveys, her substantive research focuses on social cohesion, trust and the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Daphne started her career at the National Centre for Social Research in London where she worked on the International Social Survey Programme before moving to the Eurobarometer Unit at the European Commission. She holds a Master's degree in Criminal Justice Policies from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from San Francisco State University.
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