One in seven under 18 affected
2.1 million children in Germany at risk of poverty
01.07.2024, 13:09
Around 14 percent of all children under 18 in Germany are at risk of poverty. The parents’ educational qualifications play an important role in this. Germany is in the middle of the pack across the EU. However, the risk that children at risk of poverty will be excluded is higher than average.
In Germany, almost 2.1 million children and young people under the age of 18 were at risk of poverty last year. This corresponds to an at-risk-of-poverty rate of 14 percent, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The at-risk-of-poverty rate for minors was thus slightly lower than that of the total population (14.4 percent). Similar to the latter, the at-risk-of-poverty rate for children and young people has also fallen slightly: in 2022 it was 15 percent. In the total population, the figure was 14.8 percent.
Anyone who has less than 60 percent of the median income of the total population is considered to be at risk of poverty. In 2023, this threshold for single people in Germany was 1,314 euros net per month, and for households with two adults and two children under the age of 14, it was 2,759 euros net per month. In order to fully record income, annual income is asked. This means that the questions about income relate to the previous year of the survey, in this case 2022.
The extent to which children and young people are at risk of poverty also depends on the education of their parents. The poverty risk rate for under-18s whose parents had a lower level of education, such as a secondary school or high school diploma without a vocational qualification, was 36.8 percent in this country in 2023. Among children and young people whose parents had an intermediate level of education, 14.3 percent were at risk of poverty. Intermediate levels of education include, for example, completed vocational training or the Abitur. If the parents had a higher level of education, such as a master’s degree or a university degree as their highest qualification, 5.8 percent of children and young people were at risk of poverty.
Poor children also at risk of exclusion
As the federal statisticians further explained, in 2023 around 23.9 percent of minors in Germany were at risk of social exclusion in addition to poverty. This puts Germany below the EU average of 24.8 percent. Nevertheless, the proportion of children and young people at risk of poverty or exclusion was lower in more than half of all EU countries than in this country.
Children and young people were least affected by poverty and exclusion in Slovenia, at 10.7 percent. This was followed by Finland with 13.8 percent and the Netherlands with 14.3 percent. The countries with the highest proportions were Romania, Spain and Bulgaria – with 39, 34.5 and 33.9 percent respectively. In total, around 19.9 million children and young people across the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2023.
According to the Federal Office, the data comes from the so-called Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), which serves as the main official data source for measuring the risk of poverty in Germany and the entire EU.