The number of people living in poverty in Romania stood at 3.468 million in 2025, down 3.5% from the previous year, while the at-risk-of-poverty rate (AROP) was 18.4%, 0.6 percentage points lower than the level reported a year earlier, according to data the National Institute of Statistics (INS) published on Monday.

According to the institute, the poverty rate was higher among women than men by 0.7 percentage points, at 18.7% compared with 18%.

The highest incidence of poverty was recorded among people aged 18 to 24, at 25.8%, followed by children and adolescents aged 0 to 18, at 23.6%.

The poverty rate among people living in households with children and dependent young adults aged 18 to 24 was 21.2% in 2025, down 1.4 percentage points from 2024, but still 6.7 percentage points higher than for people living in households without children or dependent young adults.

INS data also show that the relative poverty threshold during the period analysed was 24,435 Romanian lei per person per year.

In 2025, the severe material and social deprivation rate in Romania stood at 16.8%, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous year. The total number of people affected by severe material and social deprivation reached 3.16 million, with women accounting for a larger share than men, at 55.9% compared with 44.1%.

Severe material and social deprivation affected population groups differently depending on age and household income. In 2025, the highest incidence was recorded among people aged up to 18, at 21.1%, and those aged 65 and over, at 19.2%.

Also in 2025, 785,000 people under the age of 65 lived in households with very low work intensity, defined as households in which working-age adults carried out work amounting to less than 20% of their total work potential. Compared with the previous year, the share of people living in such households increased by 1.3 percentage points, to 5.6% from 4.3%.

The gender breakdown shows that the number of women in this category exceeded that of men by 125,000. The proportion of people under 65 living in households with very low work intensity was 2.1 percentage points higher among women than men, at 6.7% compared with 4.6%.

As for the at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rate (AROPE), it stood at 27.4%, corresponding to 5.2 million people. Compared with 2024, the indicator fell by 0.5 percentage points, representing a decrease of 125,000 people.

At the same time, around 403,000 people experienced all three forms of disadvantage simultaneously: they were at risk of poverty, suffered from severe material and social deprivation and lived in households with very low work intensity. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Badea; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)