This study aims to contribute new information on how and through which factors employment quality and housing quality can be improved from a human development approach so that people can live the life they want. Using the human capabilities approach as a theoretical reference framework, the article analyses the effect of involuntary part-time employment and overcrowded housing on the Human Development Index (HDI). The empirical analysis is based on the panel data technique, which is applied to data from the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the 28 member countries of the European Union. The results shed new evidence on how involuntary part-time work and overcrowded housing limit or hinder people from living the lives they want, at least in the dimensions measured by the HDI.

In recent decades, the analysis of residential rental prices in Spain has gained increasing attention. From a socio-economic viewpoint, the increase in long-term rentals compared to new home purchases by the new generations has led researchers to examine phenomena such as the growth of the tourism sector or foreclosures. This paper uses a panel data model to analyze the influence of the rate of foreclosure evictions and number of tourist apartments on residential rental prices in 50 provinces of Spain for the period 2015–2018. The results show that an increase in the number of tourist apartment vacancies increases residential rental prices, while an increase in the rate of foreclosure evictions causes residential rental prices to fall.

There is a substantial body of research that recognises the importance of analysing regional characteristics in employment and labour relations that occur in a given geographical context. However, this phenomenon has been scarcely studied from a spatial approach. This article uses a spatio-temporal panel data model to examine the spatial interactions between the gender employment gap and, some labour and socioeconomic characteristics of 727 municipalities of Andalusia, Spain, for the period 2012–2016. The results show that due to spatial diffusion mechanisms, a spatial spillover effect occurs in both the gender gap in employment and in some of the labour and socioeconomic characteristics considered. These findings may be extended to other geographic areas and can be of use for the implementation of regional policies aimed at narrowing the gender employment gap. JEL Codes: R10, J16, E24

The study of subjective welfare or quality of life perceived (QoL) is a topic of nowadays in the Social Sciences, due to the implications that these studies have for design and evaluation social and economic policies. This paper focuses in two tasks main: a) measure the QoL of the homes of the city of Medellin-Colombia, using conventional techniques multivariate statistics to produce an indicator; and b) by means of the indicator, analyze if the living standard of the Medellin’s homes is distributed randomly on the space or present a significant association of similar (dissimilar) values between near zones. The results show that QoL spatially varying distribution in the city of Medellin y que existen clústeres de barrios donde, de acuerdo a las variables del indicador considerado, se concentran la mejor y la peor calidad de vida percibida por sus ciudadanos. Estos resultados muestran que en las zonas centro-oeste y sureste de la ciudad se concentran las mejores condiciones, mientras que en el resto de la ciudad se encuentran las mayores necesidades.

In this paper, autologistic models are used to examine the impact of certain factors on the likelihood of European regions' ability to meet the employment target for both men and women for the year 2017 in 270 EU regions at NUTS 2 level. The results show the role of both regional and gender differences in forming spatial clusters, as well as the presence of spatial interaction in achievement of the target. Moreover, meeting the European strategy's education target and increasing a region's GDP levels also have a positive impact on achieving the targets. These findings may be of interest for the implementation of socio‐economic policies at a regional level, aimed at raising the employment rate for men and women in European regions.