This release is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures, and limitations of this release, see the Background Notes section.
This release is based on linking administrative income data with those who indicated they were living in private households in Census 2022. When calculating household income, estimates for some households are underestimated, as not all income sources are included, such as undeclared employment income, inter-household transfers, and some foreign pensions. Throughout this release, the term administrative income will be used to describe the income sources covered.
Equivalised income allows for a more meaningful comparison of income across households by accounting for the number of adults and children living in the household, thus allowing for analysis at an individualised level. The term low-income threshold refers to households with an equivalised net administrative income of below 60% of the national median equivalised net income as derived from administrative data sources. In this release, the low-income threshold is deemed to be €16,271.
This release focuses on children aged under 18, living in private households with one or both parents.
This chapter looks at the proportion of children aged under 18, living in private households with one or both parents, that fall under the low-income threshold (60% of the 2022 national median equivalised net administrative income) by the characteristics of the child.
In 2022, 13.9% of children aged under 5 years had an equivalised net administrative income below 60% of the national median. This increased by age group to 20.5% of children aged 15 to 17 living below this low-income threshold.
Children identified as White Irish Traveller had the highest rate of equivalised net administrative income below the low-income threshold (61.9%), followed by children with Arab ethnicity (45.3%), and Asian or Asian Irish – Chinese (39.8%).
Children identified as White Irish had the lowest rate of equivalised net administrative income below 60% of the national median, at 13.7%. This was followed by children identified as Asian or Asian Irish - Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi (15.6%) and any other white background (19.6%).
In Census 2022, people were asked to rate their general health on a scale from very good to very bad. In the general population a clear relationship was observed where, as self-perceived general health worsened, the proportion of the population with an equivalised net administrative income below 60% of the national median increased, see Income Analysis Using Administrative Data Sources 2022 - Health and Carers. However, this relationship was less clear for children.
In 2022, 14.8% of children with very good general health were below the low-income threshold, compared with 20.7% of children with good general health, and 19.4% of children with very bad general health.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.