Child Poverty in the Canary Islands: 40 Per Cent of Minors at Risk

The Numbers

The data is unambiguous — and hard to stomach:

40.2 per cent of all children and young people in the Canary Islands live in poverty or are at risk of social exclusion. That amounts to roughly 132,000 minors. The Canaries have the second-highest child poverty rate in all of Spain — and as a standalone state would top the entire European Union.

Spain as a whole performs poorly: only two OECD countries have higher child poverty rates. But the Canary Islands sit well above even the national average.

The decline compared to 2023 (then 43 per cent) is measurable but no cause for relief. Poverty has become structurally embedded — "chronic", as the experts put it.

What This Means in Practice

Fernando Rodríguez, vice-president of the European Anti-Poverty Network in the Canary Islands (EAPN Canarias), gave an example in the Canarian parliament that stays with you: children who do not attend birthday parties because their families cannot afford a present.

That is not a statistic. That is daily life for over 130,000 children in an island group that simultaneously attracts €4.2 billion in hotel investment and whose tourism industry is posting record figures.

60 per cent of the Canarian population — around 1.28 million people — struggle to make it to the end of the month. Nearly half cannot cover unexpected expenses. Child poverty is the most visible expression of a structural problem: the Canary Islands are growing economically, but the growth is not reaching families.

What Unicef Says

María Ángeles Espinosa, president of Unicef Spain since February 2026, visited the Canary Islands this week and met with Canarian president Fernando Clavijo. Her assessment: Spain's child poverty rates are "shameful" for the fifteenth-largest economy in the world. In the Canary Islands, the situation is particularly serious.

Rosa Suárez, president of Unicef in the Canary Islands, told parliament that the child supplement to the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (minimum income) has not yet been implemented in the Canaries — despite being envisaged. Around 80 per cent of families receiving the IMV would be entitled to this supplement.

What Is Being Demanded

Both Unicef and EAPN Canarias are calling for:

A pact between all levels of government — central state, autonomous community, cabildos and municipalities — to combat child poverty.

Data broken down by island and municipality. Currently only aggregate figures exist for the Canaries. Without granular data, targeted measures are impossible.

A unified social dossier — similar to an electronic health record — that consolidates all support and measures per family and avoids duplication.

Implementation of the child supplement to the Ingreso Mínimo Vital in the Canary Islands.

Strengthening public education, reducing school dropout rates and providing individual support programmes — particularly for unaccompanied migrant minors.

The Contradictions

The Canary Islands are a paradox. A tourism machine generating billions — and at the same time a region where four out of ten children grow up in poverty. An archipelago marketed worldwide as a holiday paradise — where more than half the population does not know how to get through the month.

Child poverty is not a marginal issue. It is the core social question in the Canary Islands. And it will not be solved by tourism alone — only by political decisions that are long overdue.

Sources: Canarias7 (12 April 2026), RTVC (3 March 2026), EAPN Canarias XV Report "El Estado de la Pobreza" (2025), AtlánticoHoy, Unicef Spain, INE Living Conditions Survey 2024.