Preventing Family Poverty: A pillar of social and economic resilience
Media Release
International day of Families
Brussels, 15 May 2026
For the International Day of Families 2026, COFACE Families Europe calls on its members and partners to support implementation of the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, to drive real change for families in poverty and at risk of poverty. To this end, we invite all of you to tune into our upcoming EU policy webinar on 11th June from 14.00-16.00 to understand the new EU proposals and build partnerships to effectively address poverty through a family-centred lens.
Poverty and social exclusion remain significant challenges across the European Union. In 2025, just below 93 million people in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, including a large number of children and families. The figure is equivalent to 21% of the of the Union’s population. Economic shocks, rising living costs, housing pressures, and labour market inequalities have increased the vulnerability of many households, especially families with disabilities, single parent families and large families.
Since 2020, the European Commission has advanced the European Child Guarantee as its flagship initiative for mitigating child poverty. Building upon this foundation, the first European Anti-Poverty Strategy, launched on 6 May, establishes a more comprehensive framework for poverty reduction across the Union.
The Strategy recognises that not all households are in the same financial situation nor possess the same resilience characteristics. Families, as structural units, shape poverty dynamics through their composition, internal organisation, and the solidarity bonds they uphold. Their resilience or vulnerability, meanwhile, intersects with broader institutional systems.
COFACE President, Antonia Torrens:
“To effectively address poverty and social exclusion, policies must adopt a family-centred lens, recognising households as interdependent systems where vulnerabilities intersect and compound across generations. A narrow focus on individuals risks obscuring the relational dynamics of poverty – how precarity transfers between family.”
COFACE has adopted a position paper outlining a comprehensive, family-centred framework for preventing poverty and mitigating social exclusion, structured around a three-tiered approach – primary (universal), secondary (targeted), and tertiary (crisis) prevention – and supported by four essential pillars: Adequate Resources (R), Accessible Services (S), Time sovereignty (T), and Integrated Governance (G). The paper argues that, to address the multidimensional nature of poverty, effective prevention strategies should operate to dismantle policy silos and foster multisectoral coordination.
Join us on 11th June to bring your views on ways to prevent family poverty to the highest level of EU policy-making, to dialogue with representatives from the EU institutions and civil society, and to learn how to use the tools offered by the European Anti-Poverty Strategy to drive change in your communities.
Register here for the webinar and spread the word
ENDS//
Did you know we are calling for the European Union to tackle family poverty?
Notes to editor:
1, Preventing Family Poverty: A pillar of social and economic resilience
2. European Commission – EU Anti-poverty Strategy
COFACE Families Europe is a European network of civil society associations representing the interests of families (all types, without discrimination).
COFACE’s areas of work include social/family policy, education, disability, gender equality, migration, consumer issues, and also protection of children online, privacy, data protection, and reflections on technological developments and how they may impact families. More: www.coface-eu.org
