A Two-Step Multivariate Composite I-Distance Indicator Approach for the Evaluation of Active Ageing Index

Abstract

Ageing population represents one of the most pressing issues of the modern society. Recognising the need for a proactive attitude, a multidimensional Active Ageing Index (AAI) has been introduced. In order to consider the AAI as a useful tool for future policy making, several weaknesses of the current methodology must be stressed out. Specifically, the assignment of weights to individual indicators is essentially a subjective procedure. As a possible remedy to the issue, this paper proposes the application of the statistical Composite I-distance Indicator (CIDI) method. The aim of this research is to introduce the use of a two-step CIDI approach that has several benefits. Firstly, the I-distance method, as an underlying foundation of CIDI, defines which of the input indicators/domains are most significant for the ranking process; therefore it allows the calculation of statistically based weights. Secondly, the obtained weights integrated into AAI framework provide more impartial rankings by each of the four domains and in total. Moreover, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis was applied to both the official and the proposed methodology, and the results imply that our proposal establishes a more stable ranking. Additionally, analysis has shown that input indicators/domains with the highest significance are areas in which implemented policies would contribute the most to Active Ageing goals.