Definition: all persons living in a household belong to a very low work intensity household if the work intensity of that household is less than 20%. The work intensity of a household is calculated as the ratio of the number of months actually worked by the household members of working age during the year before the year of the survey and the total number of months that these people theoretically could have worked during the same year.

Working-age household members are defined as persons aged 18 to 64. Excluded are students (aged 18-24), persons who consider themselves retired or receiving a pension (other than a survivor's pension) and inactive persons aged 60-64 who belong to a household where the main income is pensions.

Persons living in households with very low work intensity are part of the target group of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

As there is a tendency to work until older ages, the upper age limit of this indicator has been raised to 64 years compared to the previous limit of 59 years under the Europe 2020 strategy. Also only students (between 18 and 24) were not considered as family members of working age. Households consisting only of children, students aged under 25 and/or people aged 60 or 65 or over are completely excluded from the indicator calculation (Statbel, 2022b; Eurostat, 2021; European Commission, 2022a).

The general evolution of both indicators for Belgium and the EU is commented below. The indicator under the Europe 2020 strategy, with data available from 2004, is then referred to as '(EU 2020)'. For the indicator used after the Europe 2020 strategy in the framework of the action plan for the European pillar for social rights (European Commission, 2021), there is no specific indication. For this indicator, data are available from 2015 at the earliest and the data for Belgium are also used to explain the evolution by region and for different population categories. Work intensity data presented here are based on the EU survey Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). The employment data are always related to the year preceding the survey year. This means, for example, that for the 2020 survey year the 2019 employment data, which were not affected by the covid-19 crisis, were used in the calculation of this indicator.

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, unless otherwise stated, 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 survey methodology has been thoroughly reviewed for better accuracy. 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, 2022a).

Goal: the share of people living in a household with a very low work intensity, and their number, must be reduced.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include the following targets: “Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard” (target 10.3) and “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” (target 1.2).

People living in a household with a very low work intensity belong to the target group for which a reduction target has been adopted in the context of the action plan for the European pillar for social rights, the so-called persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion (European Council, 2021a, 2021b). In that framework, Belgium committed to reducing the number of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion based on SILC 2019 data with 279,000 persons (including 93,000 children), to 1.982 million persons by 2030 (European Commission, 2022; Federal Public Service Social Security, 2023).

They were also part - taking into account the aforementioned change in definition - of the target group of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion as defined in the Europe 2020 Strategy (European Commission, 2010).

International comparison: in the EU27, the share of people under 65 living in a household with very low work intensity was 10.7% in 2014. In 2015 this share was 10.1 et it continues to fell to 8.3% in 2022. The average for Belgium in that period is around 4.5 percentage points higher than that of the EU27. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with the poorest performance in 2022. In that year, Luxemburg ranked first with 3.5% and Belgium last with 11.5%.

The share of persons under 60 living in a household with a very low work intensity in the EU27 (EU 2020) increased from 9.9% in 2010 to 11.1% in 2014, before decreasing to 9.3% in 2021. The average for Belgium in that period is 3.7 percentage points higher than that of the EU27. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with the poorest performance in 2021. In that year, Poland ranked first with 4.3% and Greece last with 13%.

UN indicator: the selected indicator is related 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, since people living in a household with a very low work intensity are part of the population at risk of poverty or social exclusion, which is the indicator corresponding to the national definition of multidimensional poverty.

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, 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.

  • Indicators: 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 (2022a), Share of population living in (quasi-)jobless households indicator - Revised version, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=818&langId=en&id=201 (consulted on 18/01/2022).

  • European Commission (2022b), 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)

  • Eurostat (2021), Glossary: Persons living in households with low work intensity, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Persons_living_in_households_with_low_work_intensity (consulted on 19/11/2021).

  • 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).

  • 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 (2022a), 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 (2022b), SILC definitions, https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/households/poverty-and-livingconditions/plus (consulted on 15/06/2022).

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