One child in every three was at risk of poverty or social exclusion in Greece in 2012, a new study published by the UN’s children’s’ agency Unicef has found.

In a report entitled “The situation of children in Greece, 2014: The impact of the economic crisis on children”, Unicef says that some 686,000 children, or 35.4 per cent of the total, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, up from 30.4 per cent in the previous year.

Most vulnerable were the children in single-parent (where 74.7 per cent were deemed at risk) and in large families (43.7 per cent).

Children living in households with no working adults rose to 292,000, or 13.2 per cent of the total in 2012, having increased by 204,000 compared with 2008.

The report, conducted in collaboration with the University of Athens, also found a large reduction in numbers of children in Greece since 2001. The underage population shrunk 9 per cent in the decade between the 2001 and the 2011 census, at a faster rate than the overall population, which fell by 1.1 per cent.

It also found a significant reduction in social expenditure on benefits, with welfare payments decreasing by 4.% per cent in 2011 relative to 2009.

A significant number of children in Greece had no access to health care because their parents had lost their state social insurance coverage, it said.

Source: enetenglish, ana-mpa