Post-socialist well-being and spatial inequalities in the Carpathian Basin

Abstract

This study analyzes the spatial inequality patterns of the Carpathian Basin in light of social well-being and based on social statistical methods conducted on the findings of relevant scientific literature. The investigation was carried on within national and regional contexts, examining seven Hungarian, four Slovakian, three Romanian, one Serbian, one Ukrainian, and, lastly, one Austrian NUTS 2 regions (the last one also allowing the comparison with Western European social, economic and spatial models). The empirical research aims are comprised of the so-called Stiglitz dimensions of social well-being: income, deprivation, risk of poverty, educational attainment, unemployment, health and, furthermore, some important dimensions of socio-spatial inequality. Within the confines of the study, we expressed each dimension by its most characteristic indicator and used the results to rank and typify the Carpathian Basin regions to look for similarities and differences between them.

The results back the well-known Western/Eastern or, even more, Western/Southeastern development slope concerning all the examined indicators. Burgenland, Western Slovakia, Western Hungary and the Budapest Agglomeration emerge out as the most developed areas of the Carpathian Basin, thanks to their localization (i.e. closeness to the European Union’s ‘centers’), their economic strength, and the diversity of their R+D+I facilities. The Eastern regions – and in particular the Serbian and Ukrainian areas – on the other hand, are lagging behind in terms of social and economic progress. Shedding light on both inter- and intraregional disparities, our study highlights dichotomies between urban-rural, Western-Eastern, and advantageous and disadvantageous (i.e. pertaining to their accessibility, e.g. distance from motorway, from the capital, from the nearest regional hub, etc.) dimensions. Moreover, there are particular regions (e.g. deindustrialized crises areas, regions characterized by a high proportion of low-income strata and Roma minority, or territories with vast agricultural lands), where any development attempts aiming to improve social well-being so far has been futile. We also verified our diverse empirical investigations by spatial autocorrelation: while the socio-economic attributes of the most developed regions unambiguously show convergence and decreasing inequality, within and between the underdeveloped regions the same indicators present a backward convergence with slow and hindered socio-economic progress. This finding demonstrates that apart from the different region-types’ convergent processes, inequality increases throughout the Carpathian Basin also in an absolute term.