Author(s): Suavinha, Bárbara ; Alves, Maria ; Magalhães, Marta ; Babo, Lurdes ; Torres, Cristina ; Vieira, Isabel ; Lopes, Isabel Cristina
Date: 2024
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/25505
Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico do Porto
Subject(s): discriminant analysis; Portuguese municipalities; depopulation
The depopulation of Portugal’s interior presents a crucial socio-demographic challenge, manifesting in widening disparities between major cities and inland regions. This study examines factors influencing depopulation in Portuguese municipalities, using data from PORDATA (2022). Through Linear Discriminant Analysis on twenty quantitative variables spanning education, demographics, health, and employment, municipalities are categorised by population density. The analysis reveals significant differences between groups across all variables, reinforcing the differentiation by population density. The model achieves a 71.2% correct classification rate, highlighting education and health variables as pivotal contributors to group discrimination.
