In 2009, a survey on income and living conditions revealed that 15 per cent of those living in private households were found to be at-risk-of-poverty.

The European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion is drawing to a close, and the National Statistics Office is publishing salient indicators on income and social exclusion for the Maltese Islands as collected from the annual Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). The methodology applied for SILC is based on Eurostat recommendations which ensures consistency, and hence comparability, across European Union Member States.

Total households during 2009 were estimated at 141,650. These households reportedly earned an average gross income of €24,403, an increase of 5 per cent over 2008. After deducting household transfers as well as tax and national insurance contributions, the total disposable household income stood at €20,569, up by 6 per cent over the previous year. The disposable income is used to derive the equivalised income of every person within the selected households, which in turn serve as the basis to derive the main monetary poverty indicators.

In 2009, the at-risk-of-poverty threshold stood at €5,961. 61,278 persons, or 15 per cent of those living in private households, had an equivalised income below this threshold, and are therefore considered to be at-risk-of-poverty. Of these, 11,891 persons had an equivalised income less than 40 per cent of the median equivalised income.

In spite of a rise when compared to 2008, the at-risk-of-poverty rate in Malta has remained lower than the EU average, which stood at 16 per cent for the year under review. Other important monetary-poverty indicators include the S80/S20 ratio, which stood at 4, and the Gini-coefficient, which was estimated at 28 per cent.

An analysis by age group reveals that two specific groups were at greater risk-of-poverty: persons under 18 and persons aged 65 and over, at 21 and 19 per cent respectively, against 13 per cent for the 18-64 age bracket. At-risk-of-poverty rates among females tended to be higher than among males, except for the 65+ age group.

The at-risk-of-poverty rate for persons living in households with dependent children tended to be higher than that for persons living in households without dependent children. These were estimated at 17 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. The highest at-risk-of-poverty rates were registered among persons living in single-parent households (54 per cent) and households with two adults and three or more dependent children (33 per cent).

Table 4 shows that the at-risk-of-poverty rate among persons living in households with a work intensity of 1 (i.e. all persons of working age were employed during the income reference year) stood at 2 per cent for persons living in households without dependent children and 4 per cent for persons living in households with dependent children. The corresponding rates for these two household types where all persons of working age were not working during the income reference year (i.e. work intensity equal to 0) stood at 33 per cent and 65 per cent respectively. A similar relationship emerges on examination of the different at-risk-of-poverty rates by most frequent activity status, as calculated for persons aged 18 and over during the income reference year.

The SILC may also be used to derive a number of non-monetary indicators, which serve to provide a more comprehensive picture of the socio-economic situation of Maltese households. A typology of these indicators is provided in Table 6. Of particular importance is the percentage of persons living in households who were deprived of at least three of these nine items, which stood at 15 per cent. Five per cent were living in a household that was deprived of at least four out of these nine items. The latter are referred to as severely deprived persons. This rate is well below the EU average, by nearly 4 percentage points.

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