EVALUATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

This diploma work describes the classification of the member states of the European Union according to the demographic indicators. It evaluates development in the individual states by absolute demographic indicators too. In the year 2008 less children were born and less people were died in the most of the member states than the year 1993. The hope of the end of life grows up in all contries. Relative demographic indicators are used in the cluster analysis for diversification of rhe states into certain groups in accordance with their similarity. Two methods are used in this work --of the farthest neighbour and the Ward method (the hierarchical clustering method), the both with the Euclid distance. The hierarchical method of the farthest neighbour divided fifteen states into the four clusters in 1995, twenty-five states into the six clusters in 2004 and twenty-seven states into the six clusters in 2007. The Ward method divided these states into the three clusters in 1995, into the six clusters in 2004 and into the three clusters in 2007