Temporary in France, permanent in Spain
In 2025, 18.2% of employees on a temporary contract in France lived in a household below the French poverty line, against 14.7% in Spain. France’s rate is the fourth highest of the 27 member states, after Bulgaria (36.1%), Hungary (26.2%) and Cyprus (25.3%); Spain’s is the eighth.
For employees on a permanent contract the order reverses: 4.9% in France, 8.1% in Spain. So the distance between the two contracts is far wider in France, where the temporary rate is almost four times the permanent one, than in Spain, where it is less than twice.
The same reversal held a year earlier, in the survey of 2024: 15.3% against 13.2% for temporary employees, 4.6% against 7.6% for permanent ones. Across the European Union the rates are 12.9% and 5.2%, Germany’s 13.9% and 4.5%, Italy’s 14.1% and 6.8%.
| Member state | Temporary contract | Permanent contract |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | 12.9% | 5.2% |
| Bulgaria | 36.1% | 10.2% |
| Hungary | 26.2% | 6.6% |
| Cyprus | 25.3% | 4.0% |
| France | 18.2% | 4.9% |
| Sweden | 18.0% | 5.3% |
| Luxembourg | 16.6% | 6.2% |
| Malta | 15.1% | 7.9% |
| Spain | 14.7% | 8.1% |
| Italy | 14.1% | 6.8% |
| Germany | 13.9% | 4.5% |
| Latvia | 12.6% | 6.4% |
| Denmark | 11.8% | 3.0% |
| Belgium | 11.2% | 2.0% |
| Croatia | 11.2% | 5.3% |
| Portugal | 10.7% | 6.1% |
| Austria | 10.1% | 6.3% |
| Netherlands | 9.8% | 2.7% |
| Estonia | 9.6% | 6.6% |
| Greece | 9.4% | 4.5% |
| Czechia | 7.7% | 3.2% |
| Slovakia | 7.5% | 3.2% |
| Romania | 6.9% | 4.1% |
| Slovenia | 6.6% | 2.5% |
| Ireland | 6.4% | 4.1% |
| Finland | 5.8% | 1.1% |
| Poland | 5.6% | 3.9% |
| Lithuania | 5.2% | 5.6% |
What the poverty line measures
The line is relative and national: 60% of the median household income of each country, after taxes and social transfers. A French employee is measured against the French median and a Spanish one against the Spanish median, so the two rates say where employees stand in their own country, not who is better off.
It is the household’s income, not the employee’s pay. Income from every member is added up and adjusted for the household’s size, so a wage alone never decides whether someone is below the line.
The employees are those aged 18 or over who were employed for more than half of the year, by type of contract. The survey of 2025 counts the incomes of 2024; the self-employed and the unemployed are counted elsewhere, and Eurostat’s own words are that the rate measures low income relative to the country, not poverty.
- THE LINE: 60% of the median household income of the employee’s own country, after taxes and social transfers and adjusted for household size. France’s line and Spain’s are different amounts, so the rates compare positions within each country, not living standards across them. Eurostat says the rate does not measure poverty itself, but low income compared with the rest of the country.
- THE HOUSEHOLD: the income is the whole household’s, not the employee’s pay. A low wage in a household with other earners can sit above the line, and a fair wage in a large household can sit below it.
- THE EMPLOYEES: people aged 18 or over who were employed for more than half of the year, split by whether their job is permanent or temporary. The self-employed and the unemployed are in neither group. The survey of 2025 counts the incomes of 2024.
So 18.2% in France does not say that French temporary workers are poorer than Spanish ones: it says that more of them, relative to the French median, lived in a household below the French line, while more of Spain’s permanent employees lived below Spain’s.
One line, one household, one group of employees, and a reading that forgets any of them says what the source does not.
Women carry the French gap
Among women on a temporary contract, 18.2% lived below the line in France in 2025, against 11.0% in Spain. Among men the order reverses: 18.2% in France, 19.6% in Spain.
So the headline gap between the two countries’ temporary employees comes from women. French temporary employees sit at the same 18.2% whether they are men or women; in Spain the rate for men is close to twice the rate for women.
Among permanent employees, Spain’s rates are higher for both sexes: 8.4% for men and 7.7% for women, against 4.1% and 5.8% in France. The table does not say why either pattern holds, and this edition does not guess.
| Employees | France | Spain |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary contract, 2025 | 18.2% | 14.7% |
| Permanent contract, 2025 | 4.9% | 8.1% |
| Women, temporary, 2025 | 18.2% | 11.0% |
| Men, temporary, 2025 | 18.2% | 19.6% |
| Temporary contract, 2024 | 15.3% | 13.2% |
| Permanent contract, 2024 | 4.6% | 7.6% |
What these figures do not say
They do not say that a temporary contract makes anyone poor. The rate counts who lives in a household below the line; it measures neither the cause nor the contract’s pay, and nothing here weighs labour law, reforms or sectors.
They do not say that either country’s workers are poorer. Each line is a share of its own country’s median, so a French and a Spanish rate are two positions, not two levels of living.
They describe incomes of 2024, surveyed in 2025, not this year. They cover employees, not the self-employed or the unemployed, and none of this is a forecast.
