The economic crisis did not affect all children in the same way. Their parents’ relationship with the labour market and the composition of the family structure are two main factors that help explain poverty risk during the early years of life.
One way of evaluating the impact of the crisis on child welfare consists of analysing the number of children who live in households with low labour intensity. The members of these households work less than 20% of their potential and, therefore, have virtually no income originating from the labour market. There is a close relationship between living in a household with low labour intensity and suffering childhood poverty. This relationship, however, is not solely the consequence of the economic crisis: in 2008, some 71.7% of children living in households with a low labour intensity were poor. This circumstance is an example of the lack of protection suffered by minors living in households with low labour intensity, even in times of economic prosperity.


In 2008, some 7.2% of adults and 4.2% of children were living in households with low labour intensity (figure 3). From that point onwards, and due to the rise in unemployment, the risk also increased of living in a household of this type, until it reached a high point in 2014 when some 14.3% of minors were living in this situation. During the economic crisis, the relationship between child poverty and households with low labour intensity also intensified (figure 4). And from 2011 onwards, eight out of every ten children that lived in households with low labour intensity were poor. From 2014 onwards, the percentage of children living in households with low labour intensity has declined although, as happens with the data on anchored poverty, the figures are still higher than they were prior to the crisis. The most concerning point is that in the last years of the period analysed, the relationship between child poverty and households with low labour intensity has intensified to such an extent that almost nine out of every ten children living in a household with low labour intensity are poor.
The risk of child poverty varies according to the composition of the family household and whether the child’s parents are in employment or not (figure 5). The highest risk is suffered by children who either live in single-parent households where the father or mother does not work, or who live with both parents and neither of the two work. Especially serious is the economic condition of children living with both parents out of work, a situation that, despite the growth of the economy in recent years, has worsened. In 2018, eight out of ten children living with two parents where none of the two worked were poor (in 2008, the figure was seven out of every ten).


The children with the greatest protection are those who live with both parents and both parents are working. When only one of the two is working, however, living with both parents does not necessarily guarantee a decent standard of living, because, as we have seen at the start of the period studied, over three out of every ten children in this situation were living below the poverty threshold. The situation for this group of children has barely improved in recent years; in 2018 over 40% of children in this type of household were living in poverty.