Material and social deprivation in the European Union: Country-level analysis

Abstract

The study focuses on material and social deprivation as an important aspect of quality-of-life research in the European Union (EU). It analyses thirteen material and social deprivation items considered by the Eurostat. The study aims to compare country rankings based on severe material and social deprivation rates and country rankings obtained from composite indicators covering thirteen material deprivation items. Additionally, using Eurostat data, it evaluates material and social deprivation across EU countries in 2015-2022. The study employs different normalization and weighting methods to construct the composite indicators for country-level data. The results obtained through various methods are observed to exhibit a high degree of concordance. In particular, the severe material and social deprivation rate was found to be a good representative of material and social deprivation in a multidimensional approach. Regardless of the method used, throughout the analyzed period, Bulgarians and Romanians were in the worst situation within the EU. Slovenia and Cyprus improved their situation the most compared to other EU countries, while France, Germany, and Spain notably worsened their position between 2015 and 2022.