The population living in Portugal living in severe material and social deprivation, about half a million people, fell to 5.3% in 2021, the lowest figure since 2017 (8%), according to data from the National Institute of Statistics.
The material and social deprivation indicators are based on a series of thirteen items that relate to the social and economic needs of families, as well as aspects related to the well-being of each person, such as new clothes, shoes, “pocket money” and leisure. and social interaction.
Data from the INE Living Conditions and Income Survey conducted in 2022 on the previous year’s income indicate that 12% of the population was in material and social deprivation (1.5 percentage points less than in the previous year) and 5.3% in severe material and social deprivation (0.7 percentage points less than in the previous year)
According to information collected from April to July 2022, and referring to the last 12 months, 36.3% of people lived in households without the financial capacity to replace used furniture (37.9% in 2021), 29.9% could not make the immediate payment without resorting to a loan with an unexpected expense of 555 euros, which is approximately equivalent to the monthly value of the poverty line in the previous year (31.1% in 2021).
This is also evident from the data 10.4% of people could not regularly participate in a leisure activity for economic reasons (12.4% in 2021), 9.7% could not spend a small amount of money on themselves every week (12.2% in 2021), 7, 3% of people were able to match used clothing with new clothing (excluding second-hand clothing), 1 pp less than in 2021.
On the other hand, INE points to the increase in the number of people living in households without the financial capacity to keep the house adequately heated (17.5%, 1.2 pp more than in 2021), without the capacity to do a week of vacation per year to pay away from home (37.2%, 0.5 pp more than in 2021) and without money to eat a meat or fish meal (or vegetarian equivalent) at least every two days (3.0%, 0.6 pp more than in 2021).
The survey results also show that the The poverty intensity fell to 21.7%.
In 2021, the median disposable monetary income of people at risk of poverty was EUR 5,171, resulting in a poverty intensity rate of 21.7%, 5.4 pp less than in the previous year (27.1%) and the lowest value of the series that started in 2003 .
This year there were about 1.6 million residents at risk of poverty, 197 thousand less than in the previous year, says INE, adding that average net monetary income per equivalent adult increased by 0.3%, from €13,113 in 2020 to 13,148 euros in 2021, mainly due to increases in average net wages from self-employment (0.9%) and old-age pensions (0.1%).
The risk of poverty fell mainly among women, from 19.2% in 2020 to 16.8% in 2021, a figure slightly higher than the figure recorded in 2019 (16.7%), and the retired population also registered a drop in relative poverty from 18% to 14.9%.
In 2021, the share of the population under the age of 65 living in households with very low work intensity ‘per capita’ was 4.6% in 2021, compared to 5.2% in 2020.
Source: DN
