Child poverty levels drop in Spain

Inequality in childhood and child poverty in Spain have fallen to levels prior to the Covid-19 crisis and similar to those the country had before the 2008 crisis, according to the Living Conditions Survey (ECV) published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), and which collects income data for 2021. The ECV, which is carried out annually by the INE, is the main instrument for measuring the income and living conditions of households in the country.

The poverty rate in the population under 18 years of age decreases 1.1 points in 2022 compared to 2021, to 27.8%, approaching the 2020 rate (with 2019 data), which stood at 27.4%. In addition, the rates of high and severe child poverty especially decreased, 1.5 and 1.3 points respectively, compared to the previous year. The high child poverty rate would thus stand at 13.5%, below that of 2020, located at 14.1%; and that of severe child poverty at 5.7%, approaching 5% in 2020.

This decline also occurred in the case of the general poverty rate, which dropped 1.3 points to 20.4% of the population, reaching one of the lowest levels in history. In addition, high and severe poverty have decreased by 1.3 and 0.9 points respectively, to 8.9 and 3.8%.

In 2022 (with income data from 2021) inequality will also decrease, both for the total population and for children, standing at the lowest levels in the last decade. The most widely used indicator to measure inequality, the Gini index or coefficient, which measures the concentration of income among the inhabitants of a territory, is reduced by one point in both cases: it goes from 32.6 to 31.7 for the total of the population and from 34.9 to 33.8 for those under 18 years of age.

The child poverty rate would be more than 9 points higher than the current one if social transfers had not been made, reaching 37.1% of those under 18 years of age, preventing more than 750,000 children from entering a situation of poverty. The social transfer system thus maintains its protective capacity, which came to reduce child poverty by up to 11.3 points in 2020, one of the years in which more protection has been achieved against this situation.

A QUICK RECOVERY

The decline in child poverty data in the country after the crisis caused by the pandemic offers a very different picture from that experienced by Spain after the economic recession resulting from the 2008 crisis.

Unlike the consequences of the 2008 crisis, those of Covid-19 have had a lesser effect on the child poverty rate, which has recovered the pre-pandemic rate in one year. In the case of the 2008 crisis, child poverty figures continued to rise until reaching their all-time high in 2013, with 30.5% of children and adolescents living in poverty.

Policies such as the improvement of social transfers, advances in labour matters or the social shield deployed by the Government have helped to ensure that, in a context of unprecedented international crisis, its effects have not been so serious in households with children. and adolescents when compared to the recession resulting from the 2008 crisis and the austerity policies applied in that context.

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