The EU’s First Anti-Poverty Strategy: A Turning Point

MMM welcomes the strategy’s recognition that child poverty cannot be addressed in isolation from the economic realities families face. Poverty is shaped by inadequate incomes, insecure work, unequal care responsibilities, barriers to accessing services, and systems that too often fail to reach those most in need.

The strategy also acknowledges several long-overdue realities that we have advocated for over many years: unpaid care responsibilities continue to fall disproportionately on mothers; women experience cumulative social and economic disadvantages throughout their lives; and the non-take-up of social rights and benefits is driven not only by administrative complexity, but also by psychological, structural, and cultural barriers.

We also welcome the strategy’s life-cycle approach to poverty and social exclusion, acknowledging that disadvantages accumulate across different stages of life and often transmit across generations. Equally important is the recognition that tackling child poverty requires strengthening parents’ access to adequate resources through quality employment opportunities, sufficient income support for vulnerable families, effective child and family benefit systems, and adequate supplementary pensions to ensure financial security later in life.

The scale of the challenge

Today, nearly 93 million people in the EU — around one in five — are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. One in four children grows up in this reality.

Single-parent families, larger families, and persons with disabilities remain among the groups most exposed to poverty.

Despite some progress in recent years, the EU is not currently on track to meet its 2030 target of lifting at least 15 million people out of poverty or social exclusion, including 5 million children. Reaching that goal will require far more ambitious and coordinated action across Member States.

A strategy built around a life-course

What distinguishes this is its recognition that poverty is rarely a single event. It develops over time, deepens through transitions, in life, and often passes from one generation to the next.

The strategy therefore addresses poverty across every stage of life: supporting children and families, helping young people access quality employment, tackling in-work poverty among working-age adults, and addressing the gender pension gap that leaves so many older women economically vulnerable.

At its core is an active inclusion approach that combines:

•  access to quality employment
• access to affordable and essential services
• and adequate income support.

This integrated approach is essential if poverty is to be reduced sustainably rather than temporarily managed.

Children cannot wait — and neither can their parents

Child poverty does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within families, and its primary driver is low parental income.

Barriers to employment, insecure and low-paid work, and rising housing, energy, and food costs place enormous pressure on families with children.

Single parent households – most of them headed by women – face particularly severe risks. Single mothers are more than twice as likely to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion as the general population.

This is not a marginal issue — it is a structural failure.

Tackling child poverty therefore requires tackling parental poverty. That means supporting parents into quality employment while also ensuring that child and family benefit systems are adequate, well-designed, accessible and effective.

Across the EU, benefit systems vary significantly in both coverage and adequacy. Too many families still fall through the cracks because support is fragmented., difficult to access, or poorly coordinated.

The Commission’s planned Recommendation on child-related benefit systems in 2027 will be a critical opportunity to address these shortcomings.

Women continue to carry a disproportionate load

The figures are clear: there are 6.7 million more women than men at risk of poverty in the EU.

Women continue to face lower employment rates, more career interruptions, lower pay, and a disproportionate share of unpaid care work.

These inequalities accumulate across the life course, resulting in lower lifetime earnings and smaller pensions in old age.

Many parents with caregiving responsibilities — particularly mothers — still cannot access or afford quality early childhood education and care. This contributes directly to the persistent employment gap between women and men. Closing that gap is not just a matter of gender equality. It is a central anti-poverty measure.

Beyond employment, discrimination and stigma continue to push specific groups to the margins — limiting their access to jobs, education, housing, and services, and undermining their dignity and participation in society. This strategy recognises a hard truth: exclusion is not separate from poverty — it fuels it.

Governance and accountability will be crucial

The Commission is calling on Member States to establish coherent national anti-poverty frameworks and appoint dedicated Anti-Poverty Coordinator at the highest political level.

New poverty indicators and stronger monitoring tools are expected to be agreed by 2028. These mechanisms will be essential to ensure accountability and measure whether commitments are translating into real improvements in people’s lives.

The road ahead

This strategy sets out the pathway towards the EU’s 2030 poverty reduction target and the longer -term objectives of eradicating poverty by 2050.

But strategies alone do not reduce poverty. Political choices do. Achieving these goals will require sustained commitment from governments, social partners, civil society organisations, and — critically — people with lived experience of poverty themselves.

MMM will continue advocating for the rights and needs of mothers to be fully recognised in EU anti-poverty policies, and for their experiences to be meaningfully integrated throughout the implementation of this strategy.

Read MMM’s contribution to the EU public Consultation here: policy brief and position paper

Read the EU Anti-poverty Strategy here