Families living on the margin in affluent societies

Abstract

The fight against poverty continues. In spite of the targets set by the Lisbon Summit in 2000 to reduce poverty in the European Union to 10 per cent by 2010, and to reduce child poverty by half (Commission of the European Communities, 2000), 16 per cent of people in the EU-27 countries were considered to be living below the poverty threshold in 2010. The poverty rates for children aged up to 17 were even higher in 21 of the member states (Antuofermo and Di Meglio, 2012). The target set in the June European Council of 2010 was to lift 20 million people out of poverty, thus reducing poverty by 25 per cent by 2020. The rate of poverty is similar in the USA: with the economic crisis, this rose to 14.5 per cent in 2009. The situation was worse for children (those aged up to 18), with more than one in five children considered to be poor in 2011 (Wight et al, 2011).