In the EU in 2021, the severe material and social deprivation rate among young people (aged 15-29 years) was 6.1%, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU. The corresponding percentage for Cyprus was among the lowest in the EU, at 1.6%.

However, the severe material and social deprivation rate among the total population was significantly higher for Cyprus at 2.6% (still one of the lowest in the EU) and was slightly higher at 6.3% in the EU.

Among the EU countries, the highest proportion of young people who were severely materially and socially deprived in 2021 was recorded in Romania (23.1%), followed by Bulgaria (18.7%) and Greece (14.2%).

On the other hand, the proportion was less than 3% in 11 of the 26 EU members with available data: from highest percentage to lowest, these were Luxembourg, Poland, Sweden, Cyprus, Czechia, Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Finland, Austria, and Estonia.

At-risk-of-poverty rate of young people

In 2021, the at-risk-of-poverty rate in the EU was higher for young people aged 15-29 than for the total population (20.1% compared with 16.8%; a difference of 3.3 percentage points, or pp). The risk-of-poverty rate is the share of people who receive less than 60% of the national median equivalised disposable income after social transfers.

Cyprus was one of the countries where the percentage of young people who were at risk of poverty (12.2%) was lower than the percentage regarding the wider population (13.8%), which is a 1.6 percentage points difference.

The risk of poverty for young people was higher than the general percentage in 19 EU countries, with the biggest gap between the two observed in Denmark (12.3% of the total population at risk of poverty compared with 25.6% of young people) and Sweden (15.7% compared with 24.6%).

In eight EU countries, young people were less at-risk of poverty than the population as a whole. The most noticeable differences were seen in Latvia (23.4% of the total population at risk of poverty compared with 17.0% of young people), Malta (16.9% compared with 11.3%), Estonia (20.6% compared with 15.7%) and Croatia (19.2% compared with 14.7%).