Who earns minimum wages in Europe - European Trade Union ...

François Rycx and Stephan Kampelmann
3.2.4 Household characteristics of minimum wage earners
Finally, we have used the information on household characteristics in the EU-
SILC to shed more light on the overall living conditions of minimum wage
earners. We notably compared the latter to the rest of the population with
respect to the average household size, the total disposable household income,
and the risk of poverty.
The average figures for these three variables are shown in Table 6. All
countries in our sample show a similar pattern in terms of household size: the
population of minimum wage earners consistently live in households that are
on average larger compared to the population with higher wages.
Unsurprisingly, the average disposable household income is also consistently
lower in households with minimum wage earners. Finally, in most of the
countries in our sample, the risk of poverty of the household is on average
considerably higher for the population of minimum wage earners.
Table 6 Household characteristics of employees below and above minimum wages (2007)
TYPE I COUNTRIES
Bulgaria
Hungary
Ireland
Poland
Romania
Spain
United Kingdom
TYPE II COUNTRIES
Belgium
Germany
Household size
(in persons)
MW
3.8
(1.6)
3.3
(1.3)
3.4
(1.3)
3.6
(1.5)
3.6
(1.5)
3.2
(1.1)
2.9
(1.3)
3.0
(1.4)
NA
Household income
(2007 euros)
MW
3221.2
(1931.3)
5684.2
(2639.4)
32921.1
(16020.4)
6158.3
(4233.6)
3228.8
(1996.7)
18078
(8947.9)
32311.1
(25534.0)
24280.6
(12713.8)
NA
Household at risk
of poverty 2
MW
6.1
(24.0)
2.9
(16.9)
3.7
(18.8)
6.0
(23.8)
4.0
(19.6)
6.3
(24.4)
4.3
(20.4)
2.5
(15.6)
NA