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Towards an Inclusive Europe: Ranking European Countries Based on Social Sustainability Indicators

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Decision Support Systems XII: Decision Support Addressing Modern Industry, Business, and Societal Needs (ICDSST 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 447))

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Abstract

The aim of the paper is to assess the state of social sustainability throughout European countries, based on the inclusion of various indicators that reflect the social dimension of sustainable growth. Using the methods for creating composite indexes combined with official social statistics, the ranking of European countries based on poverty and social exclusion indicators is provided. The terms poverty and social exclusion refer to various types of social disadvantages, related to the problems such as unemployment, income inequality, material deprivation and the inability to participate in social and political activities. Our analysis enables the evaluation of social sustainability, at the country level, through formation of a composite index that includes all observed indicators. The indicators included in the analysis are classified into three groups: (1) income distribution and monetary poverty, (2) living conditions (health, labour, and housing) and (3) material deprivation. Research is based on the data provided by European Union (EU) statistics on income and living conditions, a comparative statistic on income distribution and social inclusion for EU countries as well as accession candidate countries. The results are based on analysis that includes 33 countries. For the assessment of social sustainability, a multi-criteria analysis model is developed, combining the CRITIC method (CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) for determining the relative importance of criteria and PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluation) method for ranking countries. The results clearly indicate that candidate countries have a lower level of social sustainability compared to EU countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics, University of Niš, Trg kralja Aleksandra Ujedinitelja 11, Niš, Serbia

    Jelena J. Stanković, Marija Džunić & Ivana Marjanović

Authors
  1. Jelena J. Stanković
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  2. Marija Džunić
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  3. Ivana Marjanović
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jelena J. Stanković .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

    Ana Paula Cabral Seixas Costa

  2. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Jason Papathanasiou

  3. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Uchitha Jayawickrama

  4. Ecole des Mines d'Albi, Albi, France

    Daouda Kamissoko

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Stanković, J.J., Džunić, M., Marjanović, I. (2022). Towards an Inclusive Europe: Ranking European Countries Based on Social Sustainability Indicators. In: Cabral Seixas Costa, A.P., Papathanasiou, J., Jayawickrama, U., Kamissoko, D. (eds) Decision Support Systems XII: Decision Support Addressing Modern Industry, Business, and Societal Needs. ICDSST 2022. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 447. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06530-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06530-9_7

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