Study points to growing poverty gap despite economic success

Date: 17/02/2000

By Simon Coss

MILLIONS of Europeans are still struggling on or below the poverty line even though EU living standards generally appear to be rising, according to a European Commission report due out next week.

The study warns that the recent upturn in economic activity across the member states has had little effect on some sections of the population. "There has been a general improvement in living conditions but specific groups still face special problems," said a spokesman for Social Affairs Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou.

The groups at highest risk of falling into the poverty trap are single parents, the long-term unemployed, those living alone and families with a large number of children. The study found that levels of depriva-tion among these groups are considerably higher than the EU average.

The report also warns that women in the Union are still more likely to be unemployed than men or to earn less than their male counterparts, and that the gap tends to widen as women get older.

The study also shows that despite repeated warnings from the Commission that EU governments should slim down their over-burdened unemployment-benefit and health-care schemes, spending on social protection has increased across the Union from just over a quarter of overall gross domestic product in 1990 to nearly a third in 1996.

This rise is partly explained by the fact that the EU's population is getting older, with an increasing number of people requiring state-sponsored health care.

The report estimates that there will be 69 million older people living in the Union by 2010 - more than double the number in 1960 - and predicts that the number of 'very old people' (citizens over 80) will increase by 36% in the next ten years.

Millions of Europeans are still struggling on or below the poverty line even though EU living standards generally appear to be rising, according to a forthcoming European Commission report.