In 2020, 22.6% of Maltese minors were found to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to a Eurostat study published on Thursday.

Across Europe, 1 in 4 (24.2%) of children in this age group were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, meaning that Maltese children were found to be 1.6% less at risk than the average across the EU.

Romania (41.5%) was found to be the country wherein children were most at risk in 2020, followed by Bulgaria (36.2%), Spain (31.8%) and Greece (31.5%).

By contrast, Slovenia (12.1%) followed by Czechia (12.9%) were the EU countries wherein children in this age group were less at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Contributing factors putting people more at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU in 2020 included:

Work intensity: 71.9% of the population aged less than 60 years living in very low work intensity households with dependent children were at risk of poverty;

Level of education: 50.5% of children whose parents’ level of education was low were found to be more at risk of poverty compared with 7.7% of children whose parents’ level of education was high;

Type of household: single-person households with dependent children (42.1%), single-person households (33.2%) and households composed of two adults with three or more dependent children (29.6 %) had the highest risk of poverty or social exclusion;

Migrant background: children with at least one parent with a migrant background were at a greater risk of poverty than children whose parents were both native-born (32.9% compared with 15.3%);

Living conditions: 14.1% of single-person households with children were severely materially and socially deprived compared with 7.5% of all households with dependent children.