Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 20 ISSUE 4
Written by Mateja JEŽ ROGELJ, Ornella MIKUŠ, Magdalena ZRAKIĆ SUŠAC, Lari HADELAN

Rural development, sustainable development and sustainability are nowadays often mentioned in scientific publications, as well as in political discussions and the media. The concept of sustainability includes three sets of goals: economic, environmental and social. In this paper emphasis is put on the selection of the most appropriate social indicators for measuring sustainable rural development at NUTS 3 level. Objectives of the paper were: (1) to identify the most appropriate social indicators for measuring sustainable rural development already used or proposed in literature, (2) to choose the five most appropriate indicators according to experts’ assessment. The analysis of existing research outlined and explained 18 social indicators. After the first phase of selection, an additional selection of indicators by expert evaluation was carried out. Based on the expert evaluation, five most relevant social indicators were identified, namely according to the average grade: age structure (4.70), availability of educational institutions (4.45), educational structure (4.34), availability of health institutions (4.32) and population growth between two censuses (4.32). Looking at separate assessments of each of the expert groups, it is evident that their selection of the five most relevant indicators coincides in three indicators: age structure, availability of educational institutions and educational structure.

[Read full article] [Citation]

SPUPOPUPNO1