Journal Article
To what extent does the onset of limiting health condition co-occur with poverty entries across European countries and educational groups?
Social Science and Medicine (2025)
Abstract
The risks of poverty entry vary considerably across European countries, and within them by educational group. To what extent are these differences related to the association between health condition onset and poverty entry? This study analyses the associations and population contribution of the onset of limiting long-standing health conditions on the short-term risk of entry into objective and subjective poverty in 24 European countries. A series of logistic regression models fitted to the weighted EU-SILC data show that, net of key covariates measured the year before, the link between the onset of ill health and income poverty entry is weak, but the association between ill health and the risk of subjective poverty entry is substantial, particularly in Eastern European countries. Nevertheless, at the population level, only a small proportion of all poverty entries could be potentially attributed to this association. Similarly, poverty entry differences across educational groups could not be attributed to the differences in health conditions and their associations with poverty entries. Countries with strong associations between health and poverty entries, such as Greece and Latvia, should develop their social insurance systems to both buffer individuals from the resources they lose due to health conditions and compensate them for their increasing needs due to these conditions.