BELGIUM: ‘Deprivation peaks along the coast’
30 July 2013
Presseurop
De Morgen
30 July 2013
Presseurop
De Morgen
The crisis is worst in coastal areas where more and more children are being born into deprived families," writes De Morgen, citing figures from the Flemish state-run Kind en Gezin (Child and Family) organisation.
In Ostend, 26.7 per cent of children were living on limited incomes in 2012, compared to 15.7 per cent in 2010. “That means that the costal city is in a worse situation than the much larger Antwerp, where 25.1 per cent of children are born into families without a stable income,” points out the daily. The change has been prompted by “the lure of the seaside" for people who hope to find seasonal jobs in hotels and restaurants —
Restaurant work can amount to a temporary solution, but the number of employment contracts is declining, and the income is not stable [...] As a result of the crisis, more and more low-skilled people are joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed.
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