Social exclusion
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Andalucía is, for the second consecutive year, the Spanish region with the highest percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion. According to the Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida (ECV) living conditions survey published on Thursday 13 February by Spain's INE national statistics institute (INE), 35.6% of the population were in this situation in 2024. This figure is almost ten percentage points above the Spanish average (25.8%).
This is the European Union's 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion', abbreviated as AROPE, which corresponds to the number of people who are either at risk of poverty, or severely materially and socially deprived or living in a household with a very low work intensity across all EU member states.
Just over one in three people living in Andalucía have incomes below 60% of the national median income. Either they live in households where the occupants are unable to afford to go on holiday at least one week a year, cannot eat animal protein at least once a week, cannot meet unforeseen expenses or cannot replace damaged clothes, among other indicators of severe material deprivation.
Or they reside in households in which their working-age members worked less than 20% of the total time of their working potential, which is the criterion used to measure low employment intensity.
Specifically, in Andalucía, the risk of economic poverty reaches 29.2% of the population (compared to 30.5% a year earlier); while severe material and social deprivation affects 10.6% of the inhabitants in the region (it was 12.6% in 2023); and low employment intensity affects 12% of the inhabitants (12.1% in 2023).
Andalucía rose to first place in poverty and social exclusion rates in 2023. In 2022 both Extremadura and the Canary Islands had worse figures than the region which also topped this list in 2021, 2019 and 2015.
Andalucía suffers the highest rate of poverty and social exclusion in Spain (except Ceuta and Melilla which exceed 40%), despite the fact that it has fallen to its lowest level in the last decade. The 35.6% of Andalucía's population suffering from economic, material or occupational deprivation is one point below the figure for 2023 (37.5%) and much further from the figure of a decade ago, when the vulnerable population measured by the AROPE rate was 44.1% of the total.
Behind Andalucía are Castile-La Mancha, with a risk of poverty or social exclusion reaching 34.2% of the population, as well as Extremadura (32.4%). Murcia and the Canary Islands are also above 30%.
At the opposite end of the table are the Basque Country (14.8%), the Balearic Islands (16.2%) and Navarra (18.3%).
The ECV survey also measures the average income per household by region. In this case, Andalucía is third from the bottom in terms of average income per household, with 31,015 euros per year. Behind it is Extremadura, where it is less than 30,000 euros, while in Castilla-La Mancha it is just 31,000 euros. The best figure is in Madrid, with an average income of around 45,000 euros. In the Basque Country, Navarra, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia it is also above 40,000 euros. The Spanish average is around 37,000 euros.
In terms of inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, Andalucía has improved in recent years: in 2023, it was the region with the greatest inequality, with this index standing at 32.6 points; but in 2024 Madrid, Valencia and the Canary Islands have worse records than Andalucía (31.4 points). This indicator is constructed in such a way that one would indicate a completely equal distribution of income, while 100 would indicate that one person would monopolise all the income received in that economy. The least unequal region in Spain is Galicia, with the Gini at 26.8 points. The Spanish average is 31.2 points.
Another way in which the INE calculates inequality is to compare the income of the 20% of the population with the poorest 20%. And in this indicator too, Andalucía has managed to close the inequality gap a little. In 2023, the richest 20% of the population earned 5.9 times more than the poorest 20%. It was the most unequal region according to this metric. In 2024 the multiplier has dropped to 5.5 times. In the region of Valencia or the Canary Islands, it is 5.7 times.
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