Decent Work and Economic Growth in the European Union. A partial order analysis of Eurostat SDG 8 data

Abstract

Decent work and economic growth are regarded as essential elements for the sustainable development of countries. Thus, the Sustainable Development Goal No. 8 (SDG 8) is specifically devoted to this. The present paper reports on partial ordering-based analyses of the main indicators for the 27 European member states for their complying with SDG 8. The analyses are based on five main indicators, real GDP (GDP), investment share of GDP by institutional sectors (INV), young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET), employment rate (EmpR) and long-term unemployment rate (LtUR). The analyses comprise 1) an overall analysis taken all five indicators simultaneously into account, 2) the investment profiles of the countries applying investment from business, government of households as indicators and 3) the employment situation in the single countries with the NEET, EmpR and LtUR as indicators, specifically looking at differences between males and females. The data gives rather clear-cut pictures of the general situation in the European Union as well on the investment profiles and employment situation. In all cases the countries are mutually ranked and compared to the population averaged values for the Union (EU27).