„Kiművelt emberfők” a térben – A diplomások* területi eloszlása valóban a kiegyenlítődés irányába mutat?
“Civilized Human Beings” in Space – Does Spatial Distribution of Diplomaed People Point to Equalization?

Summary/Abstract: The research results of the recent past proved that the inequalities in the spatial distribution of people with tertiary education have been decreasing since the political transformation in Hungary. At the first glance it seems to be good news because it could be perhaps an indicator of the convergence and catch up at the periphery. The purpose of our paper is to give an insight into this trend, analyze its main reasons and spatial patterns (without being exhaustive), and reveal therefore its mechanisms. Our most important conclusions can be summarized as the follows. Although we also proved the existence of the process in question on national level, we found in fact a strongly asymmetric phenomenon. In fact the peripheral, most disadvantageous settlements do not benefit from the fact that the spatial dispersion of people with diploma has become less concentrated indeed; they are only ‘passive viewers’ of the process. The decrease of the weight of Budapest and other large cities has been compensated first and foremost by the ‘strengthening’ of the already developed, prosperous settlements around the higher education centres. Therefore the decreasing level of spatial concentration of high-skilled people in Hungary, showed by the Gini, Hoover as well as Hirschman-Herfindahl Indices, can be considered rather the outcome of the ‘suburbanisation of diplomas’.

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