Poverty in Italy

Istat disseminates the relative and absolute poverty estimations for the households residing in Italy, based on 2010 Households Budget Survey data. Being sample estimations, they are affected by sampling error: small differences can be not statistically significant.

In 2010 the relative poverty incidence was equal to 11%, whereas the absolute poverty to 4.6%. Taking into account the sampling error, the phenomenon was stable in comparison with 2009.
The relative poverty threshold, for a two-members household, was equal to 992.46 Euros, around 9 Euros higher than the 2009 threshold (+1%).

The relative poverty increased among households of 5 and more components (from 24.9% to 29.9%), households with aggregated members (from 18.2% to 23%) and single parent households (from 11.8% to 14.1%). The situation of the households with aggregated members (other typology households) worsened also in terms of absolute poverty (from 6.6% to 10.4%).

In the South and Islands, the relative poverty among the households with three or more minor children increased from 36.7% to 47.3%.

In Italy, the incidence for relative poverty increased among the households headed by a self-employed (from 6.2% to 7.8%) or by a person with a medium or high educational level (from 4.8% to 5.6%), following the worsening observed in the South and Islands (from 14.3% to 19.2% and from 10.7% to 13.9% respectively), especially for self-employed workers (from 18.8% al 23.6%). Among the households with a qualified or graduated reference person also absolute poverty increased (from 1.7% to 2.1%).

The condition of the households headed by a retired person with at least one member who has never worked and is not searching for a job, essentially couples of elderly with only one retirement income, worsened both in terms of relative and absolute poverty (from 13.7% to 17.1% and from 3.7% to 6.2%).

A better condition in relative terms is observed, in the Centre, among the households with two or more elderly persons (from 10.5% to 7.1%).The absolute poverty decreased for couples headed by a person with less than 65 years (from 3.0% to 1.9%), as result of the fact that, for this household typology, the presence of couples with two income receivers increased.