Weziak-Bialowolska Dorota
Econometrics and Applied Statistics Unit, Deputy Directorate General, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Via E. Fermi 2749, TP 361, 21027 Ispra, VA Italy.
Soc Indic Res. 2016;125(2):451-479. doi: 10.1007/s11205-014-0848-7. Epub 2014 Dec 12.
We examine the European Union (EU) countries and within-country areas (i.e., large urban areas, small urban areas, and rural areas) that are the most disadvantageous with respect to multidimensional poverty and in each of the investigated dimensions, i.e., health, education, and living standards. To this end, we construct the Multidimensional Poverty Index and its sub-indices: the Poverty in Health Index, Poverty in Education Index, and Poverty in Standard of Living Index. All of these indices provide information regarding the fraction of people who live in poverty, as well as information on the poverty intensity experienced by the poor. Our results indicate that the scale of poverty in the EU countries is diversified, with Denmark and Sweden being the most affluent countries, and Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania being the most disadvantageous. We demonstrate that there are countries with no differences in the levels of poverty within a country, such as Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Finland, and the Czech Republic, and countries, usually less affluent ones such as Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania, where considerable geographical inequality is present. In general, in countries with a high and moderately high number of poor, the worst situation with respect to the scale of poverty is observed in rural areas, and the best situation is observed in large urban areas, with the exception of Greece, Italy, and Portugal, where in large urban areas, the situation is the worst. In countries with a low number of poor, in general, the poverty is relatively higher in large urban areas.
我们考察了欧盟国家以及在多维贫困方面最不利的国内区域（即大城市地区、小城市地区和农村地区），以及在每个被调查维度，即健康、教育和生活水平方面最不利的区域。为此，我们构建了多维贫困指数及其子指数：健康贫困指数、教育贫困指数和生活水平贫困指数。所有这些指数都提供了关于贫困人口比例的信息，以及关于贫困人口所经历的贫困强度的信息。我们的结果表明，欧盟国家的贫困规模是多样化的，丹麦和瑞典是最富裕的国家，而拉脱维亚、保加利亚和罗马尼亚则是最不利的国家。我们证明，有些国家国内贫困水平没有差异，如丹麦、瑞典、西班牙、芬兰和捷克共和国，而有些国家，通常是较不富裕的国家，如罗马尼亚、保加利亚和立陶宛，存在相当大的地理不平等。总体而言，在贫困人口数量较多和中等较多的国家，农村地区的贫困规模情况最差，大城市地区情况最好，但希腊、意大利和葡萄牙除外，在这些国家大城市地区情况最差。在贫困人口数量较少的国家，总体而言，大城市地区的贫困程度相对较高。
