12.8% of Belgian children are materially deprived. For example, they do not have any solid shoes, age-specific toys, they do not get sufficient healthy food or they cannot go on holidays. This is what Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, reports based on the child-specific material deprivation indicator from the 2021 SILC survey on income and living conditions.
The situation is the most precarious for children living in a renter household (33.6%) or with only one parent present (28.6%). For children with low-skilled parents (36.4%) and those with at least one parent not born in the EU (32.9%), material deprivation also poses a greater risk. Regional differences are also very pronounced: material deprivation concerns 21% of children in Brussels, 17.3% in Wallonia and 8.5% in Flanders.
The main difficulties are going on holiday one week a year, buying new clothes and participating in leisure activities on a regular basis, which is financially unfeasible for 17.5%, 8.9% and 5.6% of Belgian children respectively. A child is considered materially deprived when financial resources are insufficient for at least three of the following items: