The number of people with difficulties heating your house in winter HE doubled between 2020 and 2022 in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. This is stated in a report recently published by the Metropoli Institutewhich reflects that the percentage of homes could not maintain an adequate temperature in the coldest months of the year passed from 10.4% in 2020 to 21.8% in 2022.
Sergio Porcel, director of the study and head of the Society Area of the Institut Metròpoli, points to the inflationary context and to the difficulties in accessing housing as two of the main causes that lead to this increase in energy poverty. “The data respond to a moment of incipient inflation and, despite the fact that there is a recovery in income“There are certain patterns of material deprivation,” Porcel highlights.
And it is that the Average Income in these homes stood at 37,000 euros in 2021 -latest data available-, which represents an increase of almost 6% compared to 2020, the first year of the pandemic. Despite this, the difficulties for heating the home is not the only indicator of poverty which presents a notable rebound. The proportion of people who cannot afford to eat meat, chicken or fishat least, every two days has increased almost 75% in the last two years, in this case passing from 3.3% of the metropolitan population in 2020 to 5.7% in 2022.
Porcel expects this situation to be sustained in the 2023 data, given that the inflationary context has remained and housing prices have only grown, although he also clarifies that it is not expected no big increase compared to the previous year, but “what is expected is that the situation stay in a similar way”.
The risk of poverty, above pre-pandemic levels
the same report It also shows that although the risk of poverty in the Barcelona metropolis decreased in 2022 compared to the previous year, it remained above pre-covid-19 levels. In this way, in 2022, up to a 21.2% of the metropolitan population lived at risk of poverty -a percentage very similar to that of people with difficulties heating their home-, which translates into a total of about 700 thousand people.
This risk of poverty, as usual, stands out in some areas and some groups more than in others. Thus, territoriallydata from the Institut Metròpoli show that the risk of poverty continues to be superior in the first metropolitan crown (23.7%) than in Barcelona city (18.6%).
If you look at age groups, it is the child and adolescent population which is in a more vulnerable economic situation, given that up to 30.1% of the population under 16 years of age in the Barcelona conurbation was at risk of poverty (this translates into 153,000 children and adolescentsapproximately). By place of birth, the population born outside of Spain continues to be the one with the highest risk of poverty. Thus, in 2021-2022, 43.3% of the foreign population is at risk of poverty, compared to 11.7% for the population born in Spain.
The study also allows us to see how the educational level of people living in Barcelona and its immediate surroundings translates into the risk of being poor. In 2022, more than a quarter of people without studies post-compulsory education are at risk of poverty (27.7%). The risk is reduced to 20.8% among the population that had obtained a post-compulsory degree and up to 11.7% among the population with higher education.
The rent slab
The same Institur Metròpoli also states that 42.6% of the population of the metropolitan region of Barcelona who live in rent allocate more than 40% of their income to cover these expenses. “This also tends to greatly affect the purchasing power of families,” says Sergio Porcel, who adds that, in the case of people and families with lower incomes, this great burden of rent can translate into “situations of material deprivation.” .
Related news
Precisely, just a few weeks ago, Incasòl published the latest recorded price data in rental contracts. From this it was concluded that 23 of the 36 municipalities in the metropolitan area registered an increase in prices during the second quarter of 2023 compared to the first three months of the year, which translates into a growth of 48.34 euros per month on average in signed contracts.
These data released by Incasòl reveal that the average price of contracts in Barcelona and its surroundings has gone from 815.5 euros at the beginning of the year to 863.84which places the Barcelona conurbation above the average for Catalonia, which, despite also suffering a price increase, remains at 830.34 euros.