SUB-REGIONAL DISPARITIES: AN INTEGRATED AND DYNAMIC MODEL FOR ASSESSING QUALITY OF LIFE INEQUALITY

Recently, the quality of life (QoL) has become a commonly used concept with a growing significance also in the local development policies. However, there is no sufficient attention to the QoL framework at local level. Thus, starting from the assumption that a reduction in local disparities may also favour an increase in the regional performance compared to other non-regional contexts, we propose an integrate and dynamic model able to monitor QoL components in order to assess sub-regional disparities. The model was applied to the Basilicata region, a lagging rural region of South of Italy. A dashboard of indicators within 10 QoL domains was identified, considering two periods (2001 and 2011), by applying a non-compensatory aggregation method to combine them. Despite an average improvement for most of QoL components in the considered period, the results of the spatial autocorrelation analysis highlighted, in most cases, a clustered distribution, with the tendency of clusters to generate a carry-over effect (both in positive and negative) on the neighbouring municipalities. About 32-33% of municipalities tends to move from moderate to high advantage condition, while municipalities in a risk condition tend to move on to a moderate disadvantage condition. It follows that significantly deficient QoL components, acting synergistically, generate a self- reinforcing process. The proposed model, overcoming some limits related to data availability, allows an integrated knowledge and monitoring of sub-regional inequalities in order to implement target actions to smooth out them.