Improving the measurement of material deprivation at the European Union level

TLDR

The EU’s 2010 Europe 2020 Strategy set a target to lift 20 million people out of poverty, monitored partly by a severe material deprivation indicator whose items suffer from weak reliability. This study evaluates the 2009 EU‑SILC material deprivation data and proposes an analytical framework to develop more robust EU MD indicators. The authors incorporated a thematic MD module into the 2009 EU‑SILC survey and performed a systematic item‑by‑item analysis at EU and country levels to identify items meeting suitability, validity, reliability, and additivity criteria. The analysis yielded a 13‑item MD indicator covering basic needs such as food, clothing, and shoes, as well as social needs like internet access and leisure activities.

Abstract

In June 2010, European Union (EU) Heads of State and Government adopted a social inclusion target as part of the new ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’: to lift at least 20 million people in the EU from the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020. One of the three indicators used to monitor progress towards this target is the EU indicator of severe material deprivation (MD). A main limitation of this indicator is the weak reliability of some of the items it is based on. For this reason, a thematic module on MD was included in the 2009 wave of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey. This article assesses the 2009 EU-SILC MD data and proposes an analytical framework for developing robust EU MD indicators. It carries out a systematic item by item analysis at both EU and country levels to identify the MD items which satisfactorily meet suitability, validity, reliability and additivity criteria across the EU. This approach has resulted in a proposed 13-item MD indicator covering some key aspects of living conditions which are customary across the whole EU covering a broad range of basic (food, clothes, shoes, etc.) as well as social (Internet, regular leisure activities, etc.) necessities.