Differentiation of Polish subregions due to the risk of poverty

Abstract

This article aims to show the diversity of the development of sub-regions in Poland in view of the selected features and to characterize the areas with the highest risk of poverty. The Polish sub-regions were described using data for 2013, depicting economic, social and housing conditions of the Polish population as well as its economic activity. These data were standardized and — using discriminant function — sub-regions were grouped in 7 areas. The areas I and II, based on the value of the discriminant function, were classified as areas of the risk of poverty and social exclusion. Then, for each area classification functions were estimated. Each sub-region was assigned to the area for which it has the greatest classification value. It was found that the greatest impact on the final classification of sub-regions have following indicators: the unemployment rate, population per 1 employee and the average size of the apartment.