REVIEWS: Poverty and Deprivation in Europe

Starting with a proposal from the European Commission in March 2010 (European Commission, 2010) to set the target on the at-risk-of-poverty rate (60% of median income threshold), indicators of material deprivation and low work intensity were subsequently taken on board to identify the target population. [...]the target population was identified as those persons who are at-risk-of-poverty and/or who are materially deprived and/or who live in a household with a low work intensity. Among the issues that are treated in the book are the place of deprivation in the EU social inclusion indicators set, the impact of the enlargement of the EU on the measurement of poverty via income and deprivation measures, the mismatch between income poverty and material deprivation, the dynamics of poverty, the Europeanisation of reference groups, welfare state and social class variation. The discussion on the content of and relation between concepts of multidimensional poverty, social exclusion, while adding the concept of 'economic vulnerability', is somewhat less transparent, and more inconclusive, than other parts of the book.