Trajectories of neighbourhood inequality in Britain: Unpacking inter‐regional socioeconomic imbalances, 1971−2011

Abstract

Inequality within nations remains a significant challenge for socioeconomic development despite significant progress over the last 200 years (Lakner & Milanovic, 2016). Inequality harms poverty reduction (Birdsall & Londono, 1997;McKnight et al., 2017) and diminishes people's sense of fulfilment and self-worth (Friedli, 2009). It can breed crime (Kelly, 2000), mental health illnesses (Friedli, 2009), and environmental degradation (Boyce, 1994). Inequality has a strong spatial perspective (McCann, 2016) and is linked to numerous factors expanding from income to socioeconomic, health, and ethnicity (Lloyd, 2015).Geodemographic classification is a method that helps condense and understand large complex datasets (Voas & Williamson, 2001). Geodemographics cluster areal units into homogeneous groups that are similar to one another across their social, economic, and demographic conditions (Singleton & Longley, 2009). By employing geodemographic classification on spatio-temporal data, changes in socioeconomic and population structures can be studied (e.g., McLachlan & Norman, 2021). This approach effectively captures aggregate changes in local population structures. However, by comparing changes between two points in time, such an approach neglects the broader context within which these changes

Understanding Population Decline Trajectories in Spain using Sequence Analysis

“…Areas with small and old populations are closely associated with patterns of depopulation as loss of young populations accelerates aging and future population decline (Recaño 2017). The share of foreign-born population also influences population change, with concentrations of immigrant populations associated with population growth, producing a reinforcing effect through networks as established immigrant settlements attract new immigrant populations (Patias, Rowe, and Arribas-Bel 2021). Immigrant settlements also tend to stimulate population growth by fostering fertility outcomes (Bayona-i-Carrasco and Gil-Alonso 2013).…”

“…An evolutionary approach is needed for understanding long-term trajectories of population change. Such an approach needs to capture the timing, extent, duration, and relative sequencing of population changes over a long-time frame (Patias, Rowe, and Arribas-Bel 2021). Conceptualizing population changes within a trajectory framework can enhance our understanding of path dependence patterns.…”

Geographically uneven structural change in EU15 regions from 1980 to 2017: a cluster analysis

“…Though in regional analysis, hierarchical clustering methods are sometimes used (Aumayr, 2006;Hedlund, 2016;Kronthaler, 2005), here a k-means approach was chosen since it was found to result in more intuitive and well-defined clusters and to be less sensitive to outliers. K-means clustering is an oft-used technique in analysis of neighbourhood types (Delmelle, 2016;Patias et al, 2021;Wei & Knox, 2014).…”

Understanding trajectories of population decline across rural and urban Europe: A sequence analysis

“…Understanding past patterns of population change is key to building our knowledge about present and future population patterns (Patias et al, 2021a). To our knowledge, no study has empirically analysed population decline processes in a comparative crossnational spatial framework across the rural-urban continuum.…”

“…Created for the study of DNA sequencing, sequence analysis has been applied in population studies to analyse individuallevel trajectories over the life course (e.g., Backman et al, 2021;Rowe et al, 2017). But it has rarely been used to examine the temporal evolution of spatial population trajectories, except for applications to understanding changes in the socioeconomic composition of neighbourhoods (Delmelle, 2016;Patias et al, 2021aPatias et al, , 2021b. Sequence analysis has the potential to expand our understanding of population decline by embedding individual population changes within a wider framework of population trajectories; that is, a sequence of interlinked changes experienced by an area.…”