The figures come from Eurostat’s Living Conditions in Europe report for 2024, which shows that 6.4% of the EU population – around 27.5 million people – live in severe material and social deprivation. This represents a slight decrease from 6.8% in 2023.

Young people are the most affected: 7.9% of those under 18 live in deprivation, compared with 6.4% of adults aged 18–64 and 5.1% of those over 65. Women experience higher rates than men (6.6% compared with 6.2%), a pattern consistent across all age groups except children.

Greece among the hardest-hit countries

At Member State level, the highest deprivation rates were recorded in:

  • Romania: 17.2%

  • Bulgaria: 16.6%

  • Greece: 14.0%

At the other end of the scale, Slovenia (1.8%), Croatia (2.0%) and Poland (2.3%) recorded the lowest levels.

Regional inequalities

The data also highlight sharp disparities within countries. Of particular note, the Ionian Islands’ western region recorded the single highest deprivation rate in the entire EU, with 28% of residents affected.

In total, eight regions across the EU reported rates above 20%, concentrated in southern and eastern Europe: two in Greece, three in Bulgaria, two in Romania, and one in southern Italy.

Eurostat underlines that Italy, Greece, Romania and France exhibit particularly large regional inequalities, with gaps exceeding 15 percentage points between their richest and poorest areas (24.8% in Italy, 20.3% in Greece, 16% in Romania and 15.1% in France). By contrast, Denmark and Ireland showed the smallest regional divides, with differences below 2%.

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