Definition: the share of people under 18 years old at risk of poverty or social exclusion is calculated as the ratio of the people under 18 years belonging to at least one of three sub-populations and the population under 18 years. These sub-populations are people at risk of poverty, people living in a household with a very low work intensity and severally materially and socially deprived people (Statbel, 2023).

The indicator 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion' was already used in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy. However, two of the three sub-indicators had a different definition then: severe material deprivation is now replaced by severe material and social deprivation (with an updated list of items) and the persons considered to calculate the indicator on very low work intensity changed slightly.

The general evolution of child poverty for Belgium and the UE27 is commented upon below. The indicator agreed upon in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy, with data available from 2004, is then referred to as '(EU 2020)'. For the indicator agreed after the Europe 2020 strategy in the context of the action plan for the European pillar for social rights, (European Commission, 2021) there is no specific label. Data for this are available from 2015 at the earliest and the data for Belgium are also used to show the evolution by region among others.

Data on the share of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion under 18 years old, here further referred to as 'child poverty', are based on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey (EU-SILC) of the European Union. The income data used to calculate the sub-population of persons under 18 years at risk of poverty always refer on the income of all household members in the year preceding the survey year. This is also the case for the employment data used to calculate the sub-population of persons living in households with very low work intensity. The data used to calculate the persons under 18 years living in a situation of severe material deprivation and in a situation of severe material and social deprivation refer to whole the household at the time of the survey.

Statistics Belgium organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. 2004 is the first year for which European harmonised data have been collected to calculate the indicator. The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States. Since these data are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request from Statistics Belgium.

From 2019 onwards, the methodology of the survey has been thoroughly revised for better accuracy. Therefore, the data collected until 2018 are not comparable with those collected from 2019 onwards. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted data collection. This makes it difficult to compare the results of SILC 2020 with those of previous years (Statbel, 2021). Therefore, they are not used to calculate and evaluate the long-term trend. It should also be noted that due to the widespread use of temporary unemployment during the Covid-19 pandemic, the category 'unemployed' in SILC 2021 includes not only the long-term unemployed, but also persons who have been temporarily unemployed for more than 6 months and who are generally living in less precarious conditions (Statbel, 2022).

Goal: the child poverty must be halved, i.e. decrease from 24.1% in 2015 to 12.1% in 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 1.2: “By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions”. In the Belgian context, it means that, by 2030, the number of people younger than 18 years old at risk of poverty or social exclusion must be halved.

The European Social Summit in Porto on 7 May 2021 agreed new social objectives for 2030 between the European Council, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the social partners in the context of the action plan for the European pillar for social rights, (European Commission, 2021). These objectives were endorsed by the European Council (European Council, 2021a, 2021b). A reduction by 2030, compared to 2019, in the number of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU of at least 15 million, including 5 million children, was proposed.

In that context, Belgium committed to reducing the number of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion, or in other words the number of children in child poverty, by 93,000 by 2030, compared to the year 2019 (Federal Public Service Social Security, 2023). In 2019, there were 554,000 children in child poverty. Thus, Belgium's child poverty target for 2030 corresponds to 461,000 people. The 93,000 reduction target is part of Belgium's overall target to reduce the number of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion based on 2019 SILC data by 279,000 persons to 1.982 million persons by 2030.

The reduction target for children is adopted in the Belgian National Action Plan for the European Child Guarantee 2022-2030, following the European Child Guarantee recommendation of 4 June 2021 of the Council of the European Union (SPF Inclusion sociale, 2022).

International comparison: child poverty decreased in the EU27 from 27.4% in 2015 to 24.7% in 2022. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with average performance and outperforms the European average in 2022. In that year, Slovenia ranked first with 10.3% and Romania last with 41.5%.

Child poverty (EU 2020) decreased in the EU27 from 27.3% in 2010 to 23.4% in 2020. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with average performance and outperforms the European average in 2020. In that year, Slovenia ranked first with 12.2% and Romania last with 36.3%.

UN indicator: the selected indicator corresponds to indicator 1.2.2 - Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.

Sources

• General

  • SDG’s, duurzame-ontwikkelingsdoelstellingen (Sustainable Development Goals): United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicatoren: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • European commission (2010), Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52010DC2020&from=EN (consulted on 24/09/2020).

  • European Commission (2021), Factsheet: The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, https://www.2021portugal.eu/en/porto-social-summit/news/porto-social-summit-all-partners-commit-to-2030-social-targets/ (consulted on 02/05/2023).

  • European Commission (2022), The European Pillar of Social Rights: state of play on the national target for 2030, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&furtherNews=yes&newsId=10299 (consulted on 02/05/2023).European Council (2021a), Conclusions – 24 and 25 June 2021, EUCO 7/21, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/50763/2425-06-21-euco-conclusions-en.pdf (consulted on 28/10/2021)

  • European Council (2021b), Porto Social Summit, 7 May 2021, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2021/05/07/social-summit/ (consulted on 28/10/2021)

  • Federal Public Service Social Security (2023), The evolution of the social situation and social protection in Belgium 2021, https://socialsecurity.belgium.be/sites/default/files/content/docs/en/publications/silc/silc-analysis-social-situation-and-protection-belgium-2021-en.pdf (consulted on 02/05/2023).

  • SPP Intégration sociale (2022), European Child Guarantee : Belgian national action plan, https://www.mi-is.be/en/european-child-guarantee-belgian-national-action-plan (consulted on 19/10/2023).

  • Statbel (2021), SILC FAQ, https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/menages/pauvrete-et-conditions-de-vie/faq, see in particular "Y a-t-il des ruptures de séries dans la chronologie de l'enquête SILC ?" (consulted on 19/11/2021)

  • Statbel (2022), Risk of poverty or social exclusion - Indicators-SILC 2019-2021, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-living-conditions/risk-poverty-or-social-exclusion#figures (consulted on 15/06/2022).

  • Statbel (2023), SILC definitions, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-livingconditions/plus (consulted on 23/10/2023).

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