Residential Segregation and Living Conditions. An Analysis of Social Inequalities in Catalonia from Four Spatial Perspectives

Joan Checa,Oriol Nel·Lo

doi:10.3390/urbansci5020045

Abstract

Spatial inequalities in living conditions have traditionally been attributed to geographical location, the opposition between urban and rural settings or the size of settlements. Accordingly, the geographical literature has used these oppositions to explain not only differences in access to education, work and services but also diversity of lifestyles, beliefs and even political attitudes. In recent decades, however, urban areas have extended their scope, urbanization has become more dispersed, territories have become more interdependent and spatial hierarchies have tended to weaken. At the same time, social inequalities have become more marked, as manifested spatially by residential segregation. This article puts forward the thesis that residential segregation constitutes a considerably better explanatory factor currently for the elucidation of social inequalities and differences in living conditions in regional spaces than geographical location, the urban/rural divide or the size of settlements. A set of key indicators in the population of residents in Catalonia (level of education, socio-economic position, risk of poverty, self-perceived health and life satisfaction) are therefore analyzed from various spatial perspectives to explore this argument and evaluate each indicator’s explanatory potential. The main results seem to confirm the hypothesis that the most striking spatial inequalities are associated with residential segregation.

Highlights

Over the course of recent decades and, more as a result of the financial crisis that began in 2007, there has been an increase in inequalities in income and wellbeing in the populations of many developed countries
Two key elements need to be determined in an examination of the spatial distribution of social inequality: on the one hand, the variables selected as indicators of living conditions and, on the other hand, the territorial aggregations used to analyse them
In this study we evaluated various indicators related to people’s living conditions according to their place of residence in the Catalan territory, and we systematically compared several territorial groupings of the data

Summary

Introduction

Over the course of recent decades and, more as a result of the financial crisis that began in 2007, there has been an increase in inequalities in income and wellbeing in the populations of many developed countries. Its emergence has been attributed to a combination of various factors: the crisis of the welfare state [7], asymmetry in the mobility of capital and labour [8], the generalization of neoliberal policies [9], the growing incompatibility between capitalist economies and democratic institutions [10] and the effects of economic globalization [4] In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic will very likely trigger an increase in inequality from the year 2020 onwards, on both a global and a national level, for two reasons: on the one hand, the pandemic will probably give rise to an increase in global poverty [11] and, on the other hand, inequality is itself a coadjutant in the expansion of the pandemic [12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion