Development and rural poverty in the Regions of the European Union (Sviluppo e povertà rurale nelle regioni dell'Unione Europea)

The paper represents a first tentative analysis of the phenomenon of rural poverty in in the European Union's regions. In the first part, the paper discusses the problem of defining rural areas and examines the indicators used for international comparisons, notably the OECD definition, which provides the most widely used classification of rurality. Afterwards, we propose a different typology of rural and non-rural areas, based on population density and the share of employment in agriculture. Three categories of regions ("Predominantly Urban", "Intermediate" and "Predominantly Rural") are identified and then compared with regard to the following socio-economic aspects: income, demography, education and labour market. The analysis includes the whole EU-27 territory at NUTS3 level and uses EUROSTAT data, supplemented in some cases by national data. The conclusions of the paper underline the relevance of the rural poverty phenomenon in Europe.