Social and Economic Cohesion of the Polish Regions

Abstract

Social and economic cohesion is the essence of the European Union’s activities regarding regions. The level of development in many regions is below the EU average. For this reason, investments used by the EU’s Cohesion policy to achieve more coherence in the EU at the regional level. The aim of the paper is to assess the differentials of socio-economic cohesion among Polish regions for 2010 and 2015. The chosen aspects (such as affluence, health, education, innovativeness, entrepreneurship, regional infrastructure), which characterize socio-economic development, were analysed. The taxonomic method and cluster analysis were used to accomplish the goal. The analysis is crucial to assess the disparity between Polish regions regarding the level of development in terms of the effects of the cohesion policy.