Metropolization and higher education as factors of community wellbeing differentiation: preliminary decomposition of inequalities

Abstract

Growing concentration of higher education processes in big urban settings has multiple consequences both for the metropolitan area themselves and for their surroundings as well. This paper takes on the question of whether and how these processes affect the level of welfare of local communities functioning in directly surrounding areas (non-metropolitan). In particular, if these processes contribute more to diminishing or to increasing disparities in these areas. To this end, the inequality of multi-dimensional local deprivation index (interpreted as a measure of welfare à rebours) is calculated on the basis of data from the Local Data Bank using Theil’s index.