Social and Territorial Cohesion in Spain: Relevance of the Socioeconomic Context

Abstract

Exclusion processes are shaped through the accumulation of social disadvantages in seven life dimensions: income, employment, education, health, housing, social and family relationships and participation. This paper conducts a factor analysis to build seven partial indices that synthesise the relevant information of each of the dimensions under consideration, providing the explanatory factors underlying social exclusion risk. A multidimensional social exclusion index is constructed from the explanatory factors to account for the social and territorial inequalities existing in Spain during the crisis, 2009–2014. At the same time, an indicator of the regional socioeconomic context is built to contrast its influence over the social cohesion outcomes obtained. This work includes all Spanish territories with a regional government, that is, seventeen autonomous communities and two autonomous cities, and considers a wide set of both demographic and economic social indicators. Results show broad gaps across regions in both the social scenario and socioeconomic context conditions. Additionally, the influence of the socioeconomic context over the social wellbeing levels found in each territory is confirmed, as the analysis reveals a high correlation between the social exclusion index and the indicator.