Monitoring Social Inclusion in Europe's Regions

Abstract

The European Council recently adopted a list of target indicators for EU member states in the fields of poverty and social exclusion, with likely implications for social policies across Europe. The targets chosen are largely national average figures. This paper argues that if regional disparities are to be taken seriously, all key indicators should instead be measured at regional as well as at national level. Using a variety of data sources, it examines regional indicators of poverty, unemployment, education and health, and shows, first, that the degree of dispersion depends on the indicator under scrutiny; and second, that it is not always the same regions within each country which do best and worst in each case. It follows that a single dispersion measure will only be misleading, while the choice of disparity in regional unemployment rates in particular has additional problems which are also discussed. Finally, the paper draws attention to the limits of currently available data at regional level, in light of the fact that one key aspect of the Lisbon 2000 European Council summit conclusions was a commitment to the collection of better data on poverty and social exclusion in the EU.