Andalucía housing: almost a fourth of mortgage holders and half of tenants live in poverty after paying their housing costs, even though they have jobs

Across Spain as a whole, the in-work poverty rate is 6% lower, at 11.48%.

However, the proportion of the population living below the poverty line rises even further once housing costs are deducted from disposable income. This is the conclusion Oxfam Intermón reaches in its latest report.

"Evictions are the most extreme manifestation of the housing crisis, but not the only one. There is a less visible reality: people who work and manage, with great difficulty, to pay their rent each month, but who, after doing so, do not have enough income to sustain a decent standard of living. Housing is becoming one of the main drivers of poverty and inequality," Oxfam Intermón's head of employment and housing Alejandro García-Gil says.

For Spain as a whole, the report does provide both percentage and absolute figures. While in-work poverty before deducting housing costs stands at 11.48% of the Spanish population, that is 2.2 million people, once the cost of housing is factored in a further 770,000 people in employment fall below the poverty line, bringing the total number of people living in poverty to nearly three million (15.49% of the population).

The impact is particularly severe among people who rent at market rates: before paying their rent, their in-work poverty rate stands at 19.35%. After paying their rent, it rises to 34.08%. According to the report, rent is one of the main drivers of economic inequality: one in three working people who rent at market rates falls below the poverty line after paying their rent.

In Andalucía, while the in-work poverty rate before housing costs is 17.65%, the highest in Spain, after housing costs it rises to just under 21%, surpassed in this case only by Valencia (21.34%). The in-work poverty rate in the region for people with a mortgage begins at 15.17% and rises to 18.05% after paying the monthly mortgage instalment.

The poverty rate among tenants paying market-rate rent is 27.16%, rising to 44.17% after rent. Only Valencia (51.17 %), Castilla y León (50.68%) and Castilla-La Mancha (48.69%) exceed the latter figure.

According to the report, the pressure from housing costs compounds a problem that Spain has been grappling with for years. The in-work poverty rate, according to the study, has barely changed between 2022 and 2024, despite GDP growth of 6%.

"This confirms that sustained economic growth does not translate into a significant reduction in poverty amongst working people," the report states.

It outlines the profile of in-work poverty, which is more prevalent among people from outside the EU, those on part-time contracts and the self-employed. By sector, it mainly affects domestic and care work, agriculture and the hospitality sector.

In terms of household composition, in-work poverty is most acute among households consisting of two adults and three or more children or among single-parent households, particularly single-mother households.

The report is based on data from the national statistics institute's 2025 living conditions survey. To calculate in-work poverty after housing costs, Oxfam Intermón deducts housing-related expenses from household income and recalculates the median income and the corresponding poverty threshold.

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