Until the mid-sixties of the last century there was a full identification between the concepts of economic growth, development and welfare. With the advent of the Meadows report on "growth limits", scientific community warned of the negative impact on the environment of a development that was excessively focused on the maximization of production. In addition, the new conception of development introduced by Amartya Sen incorporates other alternative variables to per capita income as indicators of development, such as the degree of satisfaction of needs in the educational and health fields.
As a consequence of these contributions, since the early 1990s the UN has been using the concept of human development, which is a process that can start all nations regardless of their starting conditions. The steady state of the classical economists is abandoned by a path of permanent evolution where freedoms and human capacities could be increased infinitely. People would become real protagonists and the ultimate goal of any development policy, with the main objective being to expand their capacities and opportunities from a multidimensional perspective, where the protagonism is shared between the state, the private sector and citizenship. We would thus have a model of development that does not rely on so heavily on the optimal combination of factors of production, but rather on uncovering untapped powers and resources.
The main objective of this work has been the estimate of the socio-economic welfare of the counties of the Region de Murcia. A series of partial synthetic indicators are used of different dimensions (demographic, economic, labor, educational, environmental, patrimonial and housing magnitudes). The managers of public resources should increase the levels of this synthetic indicator of happiness, where we would move away from the steady state and approach a state of permanent evolution without an upper limit. This concept is based from the territorial point of view on the theory of local human development, with the aim of encouraging citizen participation to improve the quality of life, the satisfaction of basic needs and the enhancement of the natural, cultural and historical heritage. Economic growth is a necessary condition for well-being, but not an end in itself.
Although the terms of socio-economic well-being and quality of life can be considered as synonymous by the close separation between them, they refer to alternative measurement systems. While the first incorporates exclusively objective variables, the quality of life also comprises subjective perceptions of people about their psychosocial situation. In this paper we have chosen the use of objective social indicators of well-being, since there are no official statistics that include subjective variables at municipal or regional level. In this way we avoid the incorporation of human perceptions of a subjective nature, very difficult to measure. These indicators are quantitative, synthetic (summarizing the information contained in different partial indicators), multidimensional (covering several areas related to welfare) and established for a given space-time framework (refer to a given geographic area within a time interval definite). Therefore, they are not subjective indicators of happiness nor indicators of growth or strictly economic development, but emphasize a model of development created for people through the promotion of human capacities and the creation of the basic pillars of true development human.
To quantify well-being the district level has been taken as a reference since it is the most suitable according to certain authors to secure a more balanced territorial development among different regions, since neither municipalities and provincial councils have managed to avoid the depopulation of more distant from urban areas municipalities. A classification has been made according to levels of socio-economic well-being following the P2 Pena Trapero distance methodology, since all the requirements of a good synthetic indicator are fulfilled.
Indicators have been selected taking into account the limitations of the statistical information for areas lower than the province, excluding dimensions such as civic engagement, health, subjective well-being, work-life balance and community. The partial indicator of human resources would be the most correlated with socioeconomic well-being, followed by the indicator of economic endowment, labor market structure and demographic dynamics.The indicators less correlated with well-being are those of housing, environment and historical-artistic heritage. In spite of the above, it should be noted that all synthetic partial indicators used positively contribute to well-being because correction factors never reach the unit value.
Thus, the basic thesis of the development model advocated by Amartya Sen, where variables such as education and health could be used as an alternative to per capita income as development indicators, is fulfilled in this case.With special emphasis on this objective, that is to say, the improvement of the stock of human resources, it will be possible to get closer to the full development of the individual and collective capacities of the citizens, thus improving the other dimensions of welfare, not only economic.
Under the last methodology, the regions with the highest socioeconomic well-being are Murcia (above the regional average), Cartagena and Vega del Segura (around the regional average). Northwest and Rio Mula would occupy the sixth and seventh positions, respectively, in spite of their high level (first position for the Northwest) in the indicators of housing, environment and historical-artistic heritage. The order would have been different if the demographic and economic endowment indicators had not been considered in the study, which indicates that the Public Administrations should make a special effort in the latter two regions (Northwest and Rio Mula) to achieve greater population growth and income, making them more attractive to entrepreneurs and general population, as well as improving their educational structures and reducing early school drop-out rates. However, the results of the study need to be analyzed carefully because of the dependence of the variables used and the lack of municipal data.
It is concluded that the Region of Murcia does not constitute a homogeneous entity, but it presents differences in the levels of well-being of the different territories considered (coastal regions and those related to large cities versus those of inland). Economic policy must follow a neo-structuralist approach to adapt to the different physiognomy of the territories analyzed.Classification-JEL: R1 Keywords: Bienestar Socioeconómico, Agencias de desarrollo local, Estructura de Desarrollo Comarcal, Distancia Socioeconómica, Región de Murcia., Socioeconomic Welfare, Local development, Comarcal Development Structure, Socioeconomic Distance, Region of Murcia. Pages: 17-50 Volume: 1 Year: 2018 File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2535.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:1:y:2018:p:17-50