Human capital and its spatial distribution as limiting factors for the balanced development of Serbia

Abstract

Human capital is one of the key factors of economic and social development. Namely, the growth potential of a territory is largely dependent on human capital that is, on citizen's creative potential and especially on their education. Society with a better endowment of human capital has a greater development potential. The subject of this paper is Serbia's human capital seen from the point of view of workforce education structure (20-64 age group). In this paper we present spatial distribution of workforce, i.e. the differences in workforce education levels and polarization of Serbian territory in terms of human capital pool. The result is a typology of municipalities in Serbia based on calculated values of average completed education level-the EMN index. Mapping of the corresponding values was done at the municipality level in order to get a clear distinction and a more accurate picture of spatial disparities in human resources.