Data extracted in June 2025.
Planned article update: June 2026.
Highlights
In 2024, 24.1% of the young people aged 15-29 in the EU (or 17.3 million) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
In 2024, the at-risk-of-poverty rate of young people aged 15-29 was 3 percentage points higher than that of the total population.
In 2024, 8.2% of people aged 15-29 in the EU lived in households with very low work intensity.
This article presents statistics on the risk of poverty or social exclusion of young people (defined here as those aged 15-29 years) in the EU, as well as in some EFTA and candidate countries.
This analysis focuses on the at risk of poverty or social exclusion and its sub-components - the at-risk-of-poverty rate, the severe material and social deprivation rate and the share of households with very low work intensity.
Young people at risk of poverty or social exclusion
In 2024, an estimated 24.1% of the EU's young people (aged 15-29 years) - or some 17.3 million young people - were at at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This rate is 3.1 percentage points (pp) higher than that of the total population over 16, which stood at 21.0%. The rate varied from 32.4% in Bulgaria to 9.9% in Slovenia.
To calculate the number or share of people who are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, three separate measures are combined, and the rate covers people who are in at least one of these three situations
• people who are at-risk-of-poverty, in other words, with an equivalised disposable income that is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold (60% of median income)
• people who suffer from severe material and social deprivation, in other words who cannot afford at least seven out of thirteen deprivation items (six related to the individual and seven related to the household) that are considered by most people to be desirable or even necessary for an adequate quality of life
• persons (aged less than 65 years) living in a households with very low work intensity, in other words in households where adults worked equal to or less than 20% of their total combined work-time potential during the previous twelve months
If we look at the three components of the risk of poverty and social exclusion, in 2024 the at-risk-of poverty rate for young people (aged 15-29) in the EU was 19.2%, corresponding to 13.8 million people, while the severe material and social deprivation rate and the rate for people who lived in very low work intensity households stood respectively at 5.8% (corresponding to 4 million people) and 8.2% (corresponding to 5.7 million people). Some young people may belong in several of these categories.
At EU level, a smaller share of people aged 25-29 (an estimated 20.2% in 2024 at EU level) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion than was the case for people aged 20-24 or 15-19 (26.0%). Analysed by age group and component, the youngest age group (15–19-year-olds) were the most vulnerable both for the risk of poverty and the material deprivation component, while 25-29-year-olds were more often living in households with very low work intensity (see Table 1).
Source: Eurostat (ilc_peps01n) (ilc_li02) (ilc_mdsd11) (ilc_lvhl11)
In 2024, the EU countries with the highest levels of young people (aged 15-29) at risk of poverty or social exclusion were Bulgaria (32.4%), Greece (31.3%) and Denmark (30.6%), while the lowest rates were found in Slovenia (9.9%).
In general, a smaller share of people aged 25-29 (20.2% in 2024 at EU level) was at risk of poverty or social exclusion than was the case for people aged 20-24 or 15-19 (both at 26.0%). However, in 18 EU countries the age category of 15-19 had the highest risk of poverty or social exclusion. In other EU countries, those aged 15-19 seemed to be less at risk: in Denmark and Finland for example, this age category had the lowest risk, by a relatively high margin (28.3 and 18.5 pp difference, respectively, compared to those aged 20-24).
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_peps01n)
At-risk-of-poverty rate of young people
The at-risk-of-poverty rate, a component of the at risk of poverty or social exclusion rate measures poverty in relative terms.
The at-risk-of-poverty rate stood at 19.2% in 2024 for those aged 15-29 (see Figure 2). At EU level, young people were at a 3.0 pp higher risk than the total population over 16 (their rate stood at 16.2%). This was the case in 17 EU countries, with the largest gap between the two groups (15-29 and total population) recorded in Denmark (11.6% of total population at risk of poverty compared to 23.5% of young people), Finland (12.6% compared to 22.9%) and Luxembourg (18.1% compared to 25.3%). However, in 10 EU countries young people were less at risk of poverty than the population as a whole. The most noticeable differences were seen in Croatia (20.3% compared to 11.9%), Malta (16.8% compared to 11.2%), Latvia (21.6% compared to 17.0%) and Slovenia (13.2% compared to 8.7%).
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Severe material and social deprivation of young people
The severe material and social deprivation rate complements the relative poverty indicator (which is based on income) by taking account of non-monetary aspects. It is an absolute measure of poverty, which captures the differences in living standards between EU countries. In 2024, the severe material and social deprivation rate for young people (aged 15-29) in the EU stood at 5.8%, while the share for the total population was 6.4%. The share of young people was smaller than that of the total population. Exceptions include Finland and Bulgaria by a small margin. The highest proportion of young people (aged 15-29) who were severely materially deprived was in Bulgaria (17.2%), followed by Romania (14.7%) and Greece (14.4%). Less than 3.0% of young people were severely materially or socially deprived in 10 EU countries. The lowest shares recorded in Croatia (0.7%), Slovenia (1.0%) and Poland (1.4%) - see Figure 3.
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Young people living in households with very low work intensity
Another component of the at risk of poverty or social exclusion rate is defined as living in households with very low work intensity.
In 2024, 5.7 million people aged 15-29 in the EU lived in households with very low work intensity, equivalent to 8.2% of the population of this age group - see Figure 4. Among the EU countries, Denmark (15.7%), Finland (12.5%) and Belgium (11.9%) recorded the highest proportions of people aged 15-29 who lived in households with very low work intensity. The lowest proportions were recorded in Slovenia (2.6%), Poland (2.9%) and Portugal (3.7%).
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_lvhl11n)
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
The data used in this article are derived from EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC). The legal basis for these data is the framework Regulation No 2019/1700-- Common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples. The EU-SILC is the main European source of information for statistics relating to income, living conditions and social inclusion. The reference population covered by these data is all private households and their current members residing in the territory of an EU Member State at the time of data collection. People living in collective households and in institutions are excluded from the target population. The EU aggregate is a population-weighted average of individual national figures.
Context
On 25 June 2021, the European Council welcomed the EU headline targets of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, in line with the Porto Declaration. One of its three headline targets is the reduction of poverty: the main aim is to lift 15 million people out of risk of poverty or social exclusion by 2030, out of which 5 million should be children.
Social inclusion was one of the eight fields of action in the EU Youth Strategy which ran from 2010 to 2018. In May 2018, the European Commission put forward proposals for a new EU youth strategy for the period 2019-2027, where 'Inclusive society' is one of 11 goals. The new youth strategy has been adopted in 2021.
Footnotes
Explore further
Other articles
Theme entry page
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Statistical articles
Database
- Youth (yth), see:
- Youth social inclusion (yth_incl)
- People at risk of poverty or social exclusion (Europe 2020 strategy) (ilc_pe)
- Main indicator - Europe 2020 target on poverty and social exclusion (ilc_peps)
- Income distribution and monetary poverty (ilc_ip)
- Monetary poverty (ilc_li)
- Living conditions (ilc_lv)
- Population structure (ilc_lvps)
- Health and labour conditions (ilc_lvhl)
- Material deprivation (ilc_md)
- Material deprivation by dimension (ilc_mddd)