Figure 4 – Proportion of people living in households with very low work intensity, 2008 and 2014 (population aged 0 to 59 years)

intensity’, i.e. where the adults worked less than 20% of their total work potential
during the past year. This proportion has constantly increased in the European Union
since 2008 (by 1.9 percentage points, from 9.2% in the EU-27). Wide variations exist
between Member States. In 2014, around 7% of the population was living in a
household with ‘very low work intensity’, in Luxembourg (6.1%), Sweden and Romania
(both 6.4%), Slovakia (7.1%), Poland (7.3%), and the Czech Republic (7.6%). On the
other end of the spectrum, the indicator for low work intensity exceeded 14% in
Ireland, in Greece (17.2%), Spain (17.1%), and Belgium (14.6%). Compared with 2008,
the share of persons aged 0 to 59 years living in households with ‘very low work
intensity’ has increased in all Member States except in Germany (-1.7%), Poland (-0.7
%), and Romania (-1.9%, see Figure 4).