Socio-economic disparities in the Baltic States: Analytical comparison and categorisation of the Regions

Abstract

Although the Baltic states, comprising Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, situated on the historical boundary of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, are very similar from the viewpoint of regional identity and development as well as history and geographical characteristics, they exhibit regional disparities. This analysis focuses on monitoring a statistical set of ten selected representative economic and social indicators at the level of the NUTS 3 regions using deviations from the median and cluster method. Based on the analysis, the regions were categorized into groups that have shown the major disparities and differences between the capitals’ regions and the rest of the countries.

Land Use Change, Spatial Interaction, and Sustainable Development in the Metropolitan Urban Areas, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia

“…Development of large-scale settlements, shopping centers, shops, recreational facilities and education become a driving force for suburbanization, conversion of productive agricultural land and changes in environmental ecosystems. Rapid urbanisation has created the challenge of accommodating urban growth to local eco-environmental status [86]. Increasing urban population and community groupings based on income segmentation lead to service disparities, differences in spatial characteristics and typologies of settlements based on community welfare.…”

Territorial disparities between mountains and lowlands in Greece in the context of post-2020 Cohesion Policy

“…Regional inequalities are a major topic of interest for geographical research (Kebza, Nováček, & Popjaková, 2019). The issue relates to different levels of development from one region to another, in socioeconomic terms.…”

Regional human capital disequilibria: the case of youth migration in Latvia

“…There are numerous studies on core-periphery relationships within the EU (Pain 2008;Magone et al 2016;Lulle 2019;King 2019). Traditionally, the coreperiphery model is described through the ongoing process of uneven economic opportunities and the formation of specific social and political conditions (King 2019) drawing potential migrants to more prosperous spatial units.…”

“…Traditionally, the coreperiphery model is described through the ongoing process of uneven economic opportunities and the formation of specific social and political conditions (King 2019) drawing potential migrants to more prosperous spatial units. It has long since been discovered and re-examined that power relation between core and peripheral territories are asymmetrical and increase social inequality (Seers 1979;King 2015;King 2019).…”

“…Studies have also been done on the Baltic region. The case of the core and periphery relationships among the regions in Europe has been examined (Lulle 2019), categorisation of the regions has been carried out by looking at socio-economic disparities (Kebza 2019), regional demography in Latvia has been examined (Krisjane and Krumins 2019;Krumins et al 2020), migration trends to and from the regions of Latvia have been studied (Krisjane and Bauls 2007), changing patterns of urban migration in Latvia have been highlighted (Krisjane et al 2010), geographical mobility of the workforce in Latvia has been studied (Krisjane et al 2007), labourspecific problems of the labour market in regions of Latvia have been examined (LLU 2007), and the capacity of the regions has been studied, taking into account regional economic activity in the period 1999 to 2004 (Zobena 2005).…”