Deprivation rates decomposed

Eurostat measures deprivation using the following circumstances:

• Economic Strain
• Inability to keep home adequately warm
• Inability to afford paying for one week annual holiday away from home
• Inability to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day
• Inability to face unexpected financial expenses
• Arrears (mortgage or rent, utility bills or hire purchase)
• Durables Deprivation
• Enforced lack of a telephone
• Enforced lack of a colour TV
• Enforced lack of a washing machine
• Enforced lack of a personal car

When deprivation is counted as a household experiencing four or more of this items Ireland fares badly.  Only Italy and Greece of the EU15 have higher rates.

The following table tries to provide the detail behind the topline figures by ranking EU countries for each of the individual deprivation items.  Click to enlarge.

Ireland performs better than the EU15 average for:

• Adequate heating – 8.5% v 9.5%
• Afford a meal with meat – 3.9% v 8.1%
• Colour television – 0.3% v 0.3%
• Washing machine – 0.3% v 0.5%

And is fairly close to the EU15 average for:

• Telephone – 0.4% v 0.3%
• Private Car – 8.0% v 6.0%

The measures which Ireland shows up poorly are:

• Arrears – 23.0% v 9.3%
• Afford a holiday – 50.6% v 33.5%
• Dealing with unexpected expenses 56.4% v 36.3%

If we track the changes of the nine deprivations items in Ireland from 2003 to 2012 we see the following:

The increases in the last three measures listed above evident.  The number of households reporting an enforced lack of a private car fell five percentage points over the decade (13 per cent to 8 per cent).  The number of household reporting an inability to keep home adequately warm rose five percentage points (3.2 per cent to 8.5 per cent) with all of the increase happening since 2008.

Here is the same chart showing the averages for the EU15 (data for 2003 and 2004 are not available which the 2013 figures are estimates).

The large increases in households in arrears, being unable to face unexpected expenses or afford a one-week holiday away from home as evident in Ireland are not seen in the EU15 data.  It is these items that is driving the difference between Irish and EU15 deprivations rates in recent years.