//
you're reading...
Belgium, Women

Belgium: Expanding precariat drives up poverty rates

15% of Belgians live under the poverty line with the expansion of precarious forms of employment a key factor, the first nationwide annual study of the issue shows.

Children and elderly (65+) are the most badly affected, with poverty rates of 18.5% and 19.4% respectively

The poverty line is set at Euros 973 a month for a single person and Euros 2,044 for a household of two adults and two children.

Work doesn’t necessarily stave off poverty, the study found, as one in five living under the poverty line are in employment. The explanation is the growth in “precarious” jobs, says the study.

In the name of increasing the country’s “competitiveness”, there has been proliferation of “flexible” work contracts in Belgium in recent years, which have been used primarily by young people and women.

Just under a quarter of Belgian workers are in part-time jobs, which are also often offered as temporary contracts that are renewed repeatedly when they run out so employers can benefit from access to labour while denying workers basic employment rights. Hours worked on a temporary basis tripled between 1993 and  2006 in Belgium.

Le Soir

Attac Belgium

About revoltingeurope

Writer on Europe's Left, trade union and social movements @tomgilltweets or @revoltingeurope

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Twitter Updates

  • Britain fell for a neoliberal con trick – even the IMF says so theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @revoltingeurope: France’s political earthquake hits communists revolting-europe.com/2018/10/13/fra… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @revoltingeurope: Lies, damn lies and French bankers… revolting-europe.com/2018/10/13/lie… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @premnsikka: Ed Sheeran paid more in tax last year than both Starbucks and Amazon - An indictment of the UK's tax policy and the underha… 2 weeks ago
  • #Eurocrisis: A reminder of how Eurozone govts bailed out French & German banks and made the weaker periphery econom… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
  • Austerity is the wrong prescription for the world's wellbeing | Larry Elliott theguardian.com/business/2018/… 3 weeks ago
  • Mandela100 - Living the Legacy By @lynncollins65 tuc.org.uk/north-west/blo… @The_TUC 3 months ago
  • RT @JanetWilliams99: @Emma4facs @tpearce003 @normanlamb @catherinecox2 Returning from London to the report in the @M_Star_Online as campaig… 5 months ago
Follow @tomgilltweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Revolting Europe on WordPress.com

Top Clicks

  • publico.es
  • theguardian.com/commentis…

Subjects

Meta

THE EURO

The Dossier

FRANCE

GERMANY

GREECE

ITALY

PORTUGAL

SPAIN