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Non-EU citizens twice as likely to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion

Nov 21, 2014 | News

(21 November 2014) – In 2013 in the EU28, almost half of non-EU citizens were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, while the levels for national citizens were twice lower.

In 2013 in the EU28, almost half (48.7%) of non-EU citizens aged 18 and over were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, while the levels for citizens of the reporting country, referred to as “nationals”, and for citizens of another EU Member State were much lower (22.8% and 28.1% respectively).

The rate of non-EU citizens at risk of poverty or social exclusion was higher for non-EU citizens than for nationals. At least half of non-EU citizens were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in Greece (72.1%), Belgium (68.4%), Spain (59.5%), France (55.8%), Croatia (53.2%), Portugal (51.7%) and Slovenia (50.6%). The lowest rates were recorded in the Czech Republic (30.8%) and Malta (31.4%).

With the exception of Malta, the share of non-EU citizens severely materially deprived is higher than for nationals in all EU28 Member States for which comparable data are available. The rates ranged for non-EU citizens from 56.8% in Greece to 3.7% in Luxembourg, and for nationals from 42.7% in Bulgaria to 1.0% in both Luxembourg and Sweden.

The largest differences between the share of non-EU citizens and nationals that lived in an overcrowded household in 2013 were recorded in Slovenia (47.8% for non-EU citizens compared with 13.4% for nationals, or +34.4 percentage points), followed by Italy (+33.2 pp), Sweden (+30.2 pp) and Austria (+29.6 pp), while the smallest differences were registered in Latvia (+1.1 pp), the Netherlands (+2.0 pp) and Cyprus (+3.8 pp).

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