Developing a methodological framework for capturing regional disparities in social development

Abstract

This paper attempts to develop a methodological framework for capturing regional disparities in social development by adopting the methods suggested by McMeekin et al. (2020). A set of six conditions and their adjoining cases were developed that determined the methodology. A new methodological framework was formulated as an interconnected network of conditions, cases, tools, methods and other aspects. This framework was pilot tested in Kerala, India, to explore the regional inequalities in housing infrastructure and living conditions. Comparison of results with the index of deprivation revealed the importance of adopting multivariate methods and lower areal units of analysis to produce better results.