Urbanization and Socioeconomic Status in the European Regions: The Role of Population Ageing and Capital City Regions

Using the European Community Household Panel data survey and confirmatory factor analysis, this paper explores the causal relationship between the multidimensional concepts of urbanization and socioeconomic status in the European Union. It shows that income, education and occupation are strongly related to status, and the density of population area and the town size, to urbanization. The relationship between urbanization and status is positive. This means that urban areas contain the residences of the elite, such as the rich, those with high levels of educational attainment and people with high-calibre jobs. This paper does not provide evidence to support the idea that individuals lose socioeconomic status as they age and that status is higher in capital city regions. The relationship between urbanization and status is relatively stronger for the old working-age cohort and for the non-capital city regions. These results have policy implications with regard to social welfare and urban and regional planning and development.