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Received: 2025-09-20 | Accepted: 2026-01-23 | Published: 2026-03-30

Title

Analysis of regional disparities in human capital in European Union countries

Abstract

Human capital is one of the key factors for sustainable economic growth and social development. In the European Union, which is characterized by relatively significant differences between individual member states, the analysis of human capital and the determinants that influence it plays an important role in understanding regional disparities in quality of life and economic performance. The aim of this article is to analyse the level of human capital in EU countries using the Human Development Index, identify its regional disparities, and assess the extent to which spending on key areas contributes to HDI variability between countries. At the same time, we also focused on assessing the importance of non-expenditure factors that may influence the level of human capital in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the issue. The analysis is based on Eurostat and United Nations Development Programme databases for the period 2014–2023. A one-factor analysis of variance supplemented by Tukey's HSD test was used to determine the existence of regional differences in HDI. We used the Mann-Whitney U test to determine whether the identified differences were the result of unequal spending in three key areas affecting human capital (health, education, and research and development). Finally, we used multiple regression and correlation analysis to identify other (non-expenditure) factors that could be significant determinants of human capital. We found that HDI values are higher in northern and western European countries than in southern and eastern European countries. There is a statistically significant difference in HDI between countries with higher and lower spending on health care and research and development, respectively, but there is no statistically significant difference in HDI between countries with lower and higher spending on education. Among non-expenditure factors, average life expectancy at birth and the proportion of the population with tertiary education appear to be significant determinants of HDI. Other variables analysed, despite a positive correlation with HDI, did not show a statistically significant impact.

Keywords

European Union (EU), human capital, Human Development, Human Development Index (HDI), regional disparities

JEL classifications

E24 , J24 , O52

URI

http://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/1408

DOI

DOI 10.9770/a2293742582

Pages

312-330

Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (grant VEGA, Reg. No. 1/0448/24) "Study of key determinants of human capital and economic growth in the conditions of digital economy development".

This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Authors

Masárová, Jana

Alexander Dubček University of Trenčín, Trenčín, Slovakia https://tnuni.sk

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Žárská, Veronika

Alexander Dubček University of Trenčín, Trenčín, Slovakia https://tnuni.sk

Articles by this author in: CrossRef | Google Scholar

Journal title

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

Volume

Number

Issue date

March 2026

Issue DOI

DOI 10.9770/c6679368499

ISSN

ISSN 2345-0282 (online)

Publisher

VšĮ Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Cited

Article views & downloads

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References

Al Mamun, T.G.M., Md. Abdur, R., Bin Amin, M., Hassan, M.S., & Oláh, J. (2025). Public Sector Efficiency in Delivering Social Services and its Impact on Human Development: A Comparative Study of Healthcare and Education Spending in in Selected South Asian Countries. 50 p. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5265476&utm