**When extending AROPE to include an education and health dimension and an extended version of severe material and social deprivation (AROPE +), the vast majority of Roma become multidimensional poor; this is mainly because a large proportion of the Roma population has only attained primary education.** In particular, 94.4 percent of the Roma population is educationally deprived (Table 11). The Roma population is also more likely to be deprived of health access, with 9.6 percent of the Roma living in a household in which the adults have unmet medical needs, tripling the national proportion. Furthermore, Roma are more likely to live in an overcrowded house in comparison to the national population. In fact, 35.3 percent of the Roma live in an overcrowded house, in comparison to 6.1 percent of the total population in Bulgaria. When comparing the material and social deprivation of the AROPE with its extension of the AROPE +, results indicate that living in an overcrowded house increases the incidence of the material and social deprivation dimension by 1.4 percentage points for the Roma, but only by 0.2 percentage points for the overall Bulgarian population. Further, and similarly to the AROPE analysis, 21.2 percent of the AROPE+ individuals belong to the Roma community –whereas only 0.5 percent of the non-AROPE+ are Roma.

**Table 11.** AROPE + rates and raw headcounts, national average, and Roma population (2021)

||**Bulgaria**|**Roma**|
|---|---|---|
|**Panel(A): rates**|||
|AROPE +|48.1|97.4|
|**Panel(B): raw headcount of each dimension**|||
|AROP|22.1|58.8|
|low work intensity|6.1|26.4|
|material and social deprivation +|19.3|62.6|
|Education|32.9|94.4|
|Health|5.1|9.6|

Note: Percentage of individuals (using survey weights). AROPE + is an extension of AROPE. Material and social deprivation + extends the material and social deprivation included in the AROPE to incorporate if the person lives in an overcrowded house (that is if the average number of people per room available to the household is greater than two). A person is educationally deprived if at least one adult in the household has only attained primary education (or less). A person is deprived in health if at least one adult in the household has unmet needs for medical examination of treatment during the last twelve months.

Source: Own estimates based on 2021 Bulgaria SILC. We report the survey year and not the income year. AROPE definition based on EU2030 target.

**Eight out of ten Roma who are considered AROPE + experience more than one deprivation, in comparison to nearly five out of ten at the national level.** The proportion of the Roma population who are AROPE + and are deprived in more than one dimension is considerably large (Table 12); 30.0 percent is simultaneously deprived in three dimensions (compared to 15.1 percent at the national level), 18.6 percent is deprived in four dimensions (compared to 5.9 percent), and 2.9 percent in all five dimensions (compared to 0.7 percent). This result suggests that multidimensional poverty among the Roma should integrate a wide spectrum of policies.

**Table 12** . Overlapping of AROPE + dimensions, national average, and Roma population (2021)

|**AROPE +**|**Bulgaria**|**Roma**|
|---|---|---|
|Deprived in 1 dimension|53.5|20.4|
|Deprived in 2 dimensions|24.8|28.1|
|Deprived in 3 dimensions|15.1|30.0|

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