Research Areas

Social welfare depends not only on income, but also on a society’s ability to meet its members’ basic needs and help them with chances for personal progress linked to effort. In other words, it also depends on what we can call level of social integration. The main objective of this project is to provide a rich, consistent and comparative analysis of the evolution of welfare and social integration in Spain and its regions.

A methodology centered on three primary dimensions will be employed to approach this analysis:

1. A multidimensional approach to development and well-being, using as a guide the basic approach found in the United Nations Human Development Reports. Going “beyond GDP” through the dimensions highlighted by the United Nations reports — health, education and material well-being — is much more important that just reproducing the analysis of development through the Human Development Index.
2. An analysis that combines a synthetic reference indicator with a set of supplementary data (dashboards) in order to deepen the understanding of the three chosen dimensions, rather than adding new ones.
3. Social integration as a background perspective or an ever-present point of view. This viewpoint raises issues such as population aging, inequality, and economic and educational poverty.