As noted in a publication by Deutsche Welle, poverty is a very relative concept: for example, in Switzerland it means something different than in Romania or Russia. At the same time, according to pan-European criteria, a person is considered poor if their income is less than 60 percent of the average wage in the country after taxes. Thus, in Germany, a family of four is considered low-income if its monthly income, depending on the age of the children, ranges from 1,978 to 2,355 euros.
At the same time, most experts define poverty as a concept that goes beyond purely material needs – especially when it comes to children. In developed countries, poverty does not directly threaten a child's life: for example, German children living in low-income families usually do not experience hunger or cold. Yet they have to do without many things.
In particular, children from poor families often find themselves socially isolated – for example, because parents cannot take them to the cinema, pay for music lessons, hire a tutor, or allow them to invite friends to their birthday party. In many cases, such children develop low self-esteem, find it difficult to make friends, and later cannot realize their potential in the professional sphere. For this reason, when they grow up, they earn relatively little and thus pass poverty on to their own children.
This is confirmed by the results of a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation (Bertelsmann Stiftung), published in October 2017. According to the foundation's experts, in prosperous Germany, about one in five children has experienced poverty at some point in their lives. "Those who once fall below the poverty line stay there for a long time. Only a very small number of families manage to escape poverty," explains Jorg Dräger, a member of the Bertelsmann Foundation's executive board.
However, compared to other European countries (not to mention developing ones), the situation in Germany can be called good. According to the European statistical agency Eurostat, in 2016, more than a quarter of all children in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Romania topped this indicator: in that country, every second child was on the brink of poverty. It is followed by neighboring Bulgaria.
At the other end of the list are the prosperous Scandinavian countries – Denmark and Finland. Some central European countries also show good results: Slovenia and the Czech Republic rank 3rd and 4th respectively. Germany is in 7th place. However, considering that even in Denmark, almost 14 percent of children are at risk of poverty, it becomes clear that this problem remains relevant even in the richest countries.
A study on this topic was recently published by the German public organization for helping children and adolescents, Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk. Experts asked children and adults to name the causes of poverty and possible solutions. According to the majority of respondents, the state has abandoned its citizens to their fate: three-quarters of respondents noted that the German authorities do "little" or "very little" to combat poverty.
Many also believe that the main cause of poverty is that "many residents of Germany have too low incomes" and "single mothers or fathers receive insufficient support from the state" both in terms of finances and childcare.
As for measures to combat poverty, the priority for respondents is not increasing social and child benefits, but improving the quality of childcare services in schools and kindergartens, as well as providing high-quality and free educational programs.