Part time, full time
In France, 20.2% of people working part time were at risk of poverty in the 2025 survey, against 6.0% of those working full time. The rate for part-timers was 15.8% in 2022.
Across the EU, the rate for part-timers was 13.5%. For full-timers, France was below the EU average, at 6.0% against 6.8%.
Temporary employees show the same gap: 18.2%, against 4.9% for permanent employees. The self-employed were at 21.8%, employees at 6.8%.
| Group | France 2022 | France 2025 | Change | EU 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyone in work | 7.5% | 8.7% | +1.2 | 8.3% |
| Employees | 6.0% | 6.8% | +0.8 | 6.5% |
| Self-employed | 17.5% | 21.8% | +4.3 | 19.7% |
| Full time | 5.4% | 6.0% | +0.6 | 6.8% |
| Part time | 15.8% | 20.2% | +4.4 | 13.5% |
| Permanent contract | 4.4% | 4.9% | +0.5 | 5.2% |
| Temporary contract | 14.2% | 18.2% | +4.0 | 12.9% |
Households, not wages
At risk of poverty means a household’s disposable income, adjusted for its size, is below 60% of the national median. For one adult in France, that threshold was €15,875 a year.
It is about the household, not the job. A low wage in a household with another income may not count; a full wage that supports a family can.
Each survey measures the previous year’s income. The 2025 figures describe 2024, and the threshold moves with the median.
- AT RISK OF POVERTY: the household’s disposable income, adjusted for its size, is below 60% of the national median. For one adult in France that was €15,875 a year in the 2025 survey. It is about the household, not the wage.
- IN WORK: people aged 18 and over who were employed for more than half of the income year. Part-time or temporary describes their main situation that year.
- THE YEAR: each survey measures the previous calendar year’s income, so the 2025 figures describe 2024. Eurostat flags breaks for France in 2008, 2020 and 2022, so changes here run from 2022.
So 20.2% does not say that one part-timer in five is paid below a poverty line: it says that one in five lived in a household whose income, for its size, fell below €15,875 a year for one adult.
One household threshold, one income year and one break in the series, and a reading that forgets any of them says what the source does not.
Three rises in a row
Across everyone in work in France, the rate was 8.7% in the 2025 survey, up from 7.5% in 2022, 7.8% in 2023 and 8.3% in 2024. The EU average was 8.3%.
For part-timers, 20.2% is the highest figure in France’s series, which starts in 2004. The series has breaks in 2008, 2020 and 2022, so only the change since 2022 is measured on one basis.
The survey is built to measure the overall poverty rate to about one point, and a group such as part-timers rests on a smaller sample. A change of a few tenths in one year can be noise; for part-timers, the rate moved from 15.5% to 17.2% and back to 13.9% between 2019 and 2021.
| Survey | France | Part time | EU |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 7.4% | 15.5% | 9.1% |
| 2020 (break) | 7.4% | 17.2% | 8.8% |
| 2021 | 6.9% | 13.9% | 8.9% |
| 2022 (break) | 7.5% | 15.8% | 8.5% |
| 2023 | 7.8% | 16.6% | 8.3% |
| 2024 | 8.3% | 17.8% | 8.2% |
| 2025 | 8.7% | 20.2% | 8.3% |
What these figures do not say
They do not say why. Nothing here measures the minimum wage, benefits, prices or any reform, and no policy is assessed.
They do not count people, and they describe France as a whole, not any region. France is compared only with the EU average.
They describe incomes of 2024, and none of this is a forecast.
