Luxembourg 15 October 2024
In 2023, 21.4% of the EU population – or some 94.6 million people – were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
At the regional level, the highest regional shares of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, among regions classified at level 2 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 2), were recorded in French outermost regions, in southern Italy and in rural Romanian regions (source dataset: ilc_peps11n).
In 2023, people living in the capital regions of some EU countries were generally less likely to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion than their counterparts living in the remainder of the country. This disparity was most pronounced in Romania, where the national rate was 32.0%, compared to just 12.3% in the Bucureşti-Ilfov region. Similarly, in Poland, the national rate stood at 16.3%, while in Warszawski Stołeczny it was only 8.9%. In Croatia, the national rate was 20.7%, whereas in Grad Zagreb, it was 11.9%.
In contrast, the opposite trend was observed in Belgium and Austria, where the share of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the capital regions of Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest (37.6%) and Wien (29.5%) was significantly higher than the national averages of 18.6% and 17.7%, respectively.
Would you like to know more about living conditions across EU regions?
You can read more about living conditions in the Eurostat regional yearbook – 2024 edition also available as a set of Statistics Explained articles. The corresponding maps in the Statistical Atlas provide a full-screen interactive map.
For more information
- Thematic section on income and living conditions
- Database on income and living conditions
- Thematic section on regions and cities
Methodological note
This article relies on the data from Eurostat regional yearbook – note that some of the data may have been updated since its publication.
Source – Eurostat