Calabria, Campania and Sicily top the list of EU regions at risk of poverty
This is an indicator of low income compared to other residents in the same area
by Lorenzo Pace
Key points
The risk of poverty particularly affects southern Italy. Not only in relation to the rest of the country, but also to the entire European Union. This is shown by the new Eurostat data, updated to 2024. Among the five regions where the risk is highest, three are Italian. They are Calabria, Campania and Sicily.
What Eurostat analyses
Let us start with how the analysis of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, works. It examines the 270 Nuts2 level territories - such as the regions in Italy, the autonomous communities in Spain, the Belgian and Dutch provinces, the Austrian Länder but also the French overseas regions (DOM) - and the percentage of their residents to be at risk of poverty.
By risk of poverty, Eurostat means "the number of people with an equivalised disposable income (after social transfers) below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60% of the national median equivalised disposable income after social transfers". It is thus a relative, not an absolute indicator, based on the median (not average) wealth of territories.
That is why, Eurostat specifies, "it does not measure wealth or poverty, but low income compared to other residents in that country, which does not necessarily imply a low standard of living
The first positions
Witness, therefore, the imbalances with the rest of the population. The region where the phenomenon is strongest is the French Guyana (among the Doms), located on the north-eastern coast of South America. There, 53.3% are at risk of poverty. The second position is also occupied by a territory 'outside' the continent, namely the Ciudad de Melilla, a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Morocco, in North Africa.
