Sustainable socio-economic development and Rainbow Europe Index

The issues of recognizing the rights of the LGBTQ+ community around the world and developing appropriate anti-discrimination policies and laws are one of the main topics for discussion in the global agenda. This is due to the commitment of the world community to protect human rights and meet the needs of society. The paper aims to assess the relationship between socio-economic development indicators of some European countries and the Rainbow Europe Index. To find out how discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community affects various social and economic development indicators of some European countries, a data matrix was developed and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient was calculated. The obtained results confirmed a positive relationship between the Rainbow Europe Index and GDP per capita, the Human Development Index, the Corruption Index, and the Index of Happiness. Calculations have shown that the Rainbow Europe Index had a significant impact on these indicators. The study proved the dependence of indicators and demonstrated the need to provide freedoms and rights for LGBTQ+ affiliated members in Ukraine and other European countries.
AcknowledgmentThis paper is published as a part of research projects “Convergence of economic and educational transformations in the digital society: modeling the impact on regional and national security” (No. 0121U109553) and “Reforming the lifelong learning system in Ukraine for the prevention of the labor emigration: a coopetition model of institutional partnership” (No. 0120U102001).


INTRODUCTION
The issue of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community has recently become highly relevant in the world community. It is one of the most important problems to be acknowledged and solved nowadays, along with the environmental crisis, sustainable development issues, and disarming. Special attention to the topic was paid after the proclamation of the Human Rights Charter (HRC) when the search for possible strategies and mechanisms to support their implementation began. One aspect of the HRC is the non-discrimination policy based on all grounds, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
The movement for the recognition of homosexuality and other manifestations of sexuality began to appear more active in the sixties of the last century. Lobbying for legal rights that were enshrined in the Charter of Human Rights by the LGBTQ+ community has also become more active due to some discriminatory events at that time. One of the most famous ones was the Stonewall Riots that happened in 1969 in the United States and led to a populated demonstration and lobbying of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States and the world. As a result of tireless fighting, most European and American countries have passed a law recognizing same-sex marriage, and most importantly, unacceptable discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
Currently, the issue of recognition and development of anti-discrimination policies and laws is essential in Ukraine due to the nation's desire to be a member of the European community. The problem needs to be solved not only because of the commitments that Ukraine has undertaken since the signing of the Association with the European Union, but also in its own interests of national security. After all, discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community affects the development of economic and social prosperity of countries and regions of the world. It is also a cause of migration tendencies as people tend to choose countries with a high level of freedom and implementation of human rights.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Nowadays many researchers devoted their studies to the issues of social and economic inequality, as well as the rights and freedoms of the population in different regions and countries. Particularly, Chugunov and Nasibova (2021) studied the influence of state funding on social indicators on the example of EU countries. The study proved that social indicators are determined not just by the amount of funding of social spending, but also by the structure of the social protection system. Kolluru and Semenenko (2021) and Kuzmenko et al. (2021) profoundly investigated income inequalities among the working population in EU countries and Ukraine using GINI indicator analysis. Barannyk et al. (2021) identified general problems of personal income tax and its implementation directions as a tool of social policy based on Laffer's tax theory. Kolodiziev et al. (2021) investigated the effect of pension assets on economic growth on the example of post-socialist countries, e.g. Hungary, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Oliynyk et al. (2017) studied the possibilities of life insurance as a financial tool to fight gender and age inequalities among the population in developed countries.
A special focus is put on the recognition of the LGBTQ+ community rights all around the world. Shelukhin (2017) discusses how discrimination against LGBTQ+ in the form of lacking legal guarantees has a negative impact on the countries' economic development. The study describes the example of researchers at the Williams Institute who correlated the data of the Global Index of Legal Recognition of Homosexual Orientation (GILRHO) with GDP per capita and the Human Development Index. They found an extremely high correlation, which was confirmed by the results of regression analysis: one additional point of the GILRHO index (i.e., +1 additional right for LGBTQ+) is associated with an increase in GDP per capita by an average of 1,440 US dollars. Factors such as an unhealthy atmosphere in society (school, workplace, etc.), associated with the reproduction of prejudice and the promotion of discrimination, contribute to the reduction of the quality of human capital and create formal and informal barriers, in particular in economic relations.
In addition, Prozhoga and Shelupin (2016) described discrimination in the workplace. Two main types were distinguished: 1) discrimination by a boss and 2) mobbing (discrimination by colleagues). In addition, they concluded that homophobia affects LGBTQ+ representatives from an economic point of view, finding the following arguments: 1. Inequality at work -members of the LGBT community receive lower wages than their heterosexual counterparts, which leads to reduced tax revenues and the outflow of skilled workers abroad. LGBTQ+ individuals was associated with an increase in real GDP per capita of almost USD 2,000. It is seen that more accurate data showed an even higher result than previous studies.
Furthermore, together with the GILRHO indicator, the Rainbow Europe Index was used, which was developed by ILGA-Europe. Paternotte (2016) examined the Europeanisation of civil society organizations on the example of ILGA-Europe in Europe. In addition, the study analyzed the impact of Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and focused on three fixed dynamics that ILGA-Europe has quickly experienced: NGOization, institutionalization, and professionalization. It was argued that the establishment of ILGA-Europe is not only a response to institutional and political change but the result of specific ways to identify active activities. It is the interaction between the identity of the movement and the emerging institutional opportunities that have allowed the organization to transform.
Other solid points were made by Box (2015) who pointed out the economic losses on the example of local governments and states in the US. It was con-cluded that LGBTQ+ rights, same-sex marriage in his case, has a strong correlation between a location's wealth, prospects for economic investment, and ability to recruit talent, with its level of inclusiveness for LGBT people.
The issue of the economic and social impact of discrimination against LGBTQ+ is also being addressed by various non-governmental institutions, which are lobbying for this issue and trying to provide evidence of a significant correlation between harassment and its impact on the economy. For example, Zane (2018) reported that in 2016, the US Treasury Department found that same-sex (male) couples had an average household income of $176,000, about $63,000 more than pairs of opposite sexes. Lesbian couples earn $11,000 more than couples of the opposite sex, confirming that there is some truth in the age-old myth that gays, especially gay men (whites), have higher income. If the LGBT community were a country, it would be the world's fourth-largest economy with a GDP of $ 4.6 trillion. Such indicators are impressive and make individuals pay attention to the significant economic and social benefits of LGBTQ+ representatives.
Moreover, Vu (2021) proved that social tolerance toward homosexuality is positively correlated with the economic complexity index, a novel measure of cross-country differences in innovative capabilities. It means that the more a nation is tolerant of the community, the more innovative technologically and advanced it can be.
The discrimination against the minority can affect the touristic field as well. Ram et al. (2019) found the interconnection between gay-friendly cities and tourists. The inclusive policy raises a positive attitude in the incoming tourists despite their affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community and LGBTQ+ members do not spend more money, especially during the Pride Month. Moreover, Hahm and Ro (2019) discuss factors that influence attendance of LGBTQ+-friendly touristic destinations as this segment of the market is growing every day.
In addition, the discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community has an impact on migration tendencies. Bayramoğlu and Lünenborg (2018) discussed the issue of refugees' migration from several Middle Eastern countries via Turkey to Germany. It is believed that social media and dating applications can help create a sense of belonging and find a smooth way to integrate into new societies with a new approach to embrace their sexuality. Therefore, those tools can create a "picture" that attracts members of the community, so they find ways to migrate to the desired country. On the contrary, Bhagat (2018) points another issue for LGBTQ+ people who look for asylum in Cape Town, South Africa. The study discusses new trends in the city that are negatively affecting LGBTQ+ people like access to shelter and employment due to the rise of hatred and xenophobia as well as the decrease of neo-liberal direction. According to Ayoub and Bauman (2019), migration contributes to new and unique continental ties between multi-national queer organizations. Thus, it is important to see how these ties are built and how they can be beneficial in terms of migration tendencies to understand why people choose a specific country or region to migrate to. Moreover, Okada (2020) discussed the life of transgender women from the Philippines who migrate to Japan for work in the entertainment field. As a result, working and living in Japan had a positive influence on their gender identity affirmation as to when they were coming back to their home countries, they were feeling marginalized and not accepted. These studies can explain the migration tendencies as people choose to live in counties where they feel accepted.

AIM
The paper aims to assess the relationship between socio-economic development indicators of some European countries and the Rainbow Europe Index.

METHODOLOGY
To find out how discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community affects various social and economic development indicators in the world and regions, it was decided to develop a data matrix and calculate the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. It shows the significance or insignificance of a particular economic and social indicator to the Rainbow Europe Index or tolerance and em-powerment of the LGBTQ+ community in different countries in the period of 7 years (2013-2019).
Considering the data obtained during the analysis, it was decided to include the following indicators for the study: • Rainbow Europe Index: An indicator published annually since 2009 that examines the human rights situation, including the level and availability of anti-discrimination laws, family recognition, hate speech, gender, freedom of assembly, association and expression, laws on asylum, and assesses what life is like for LGBTQ+ affiliated members in each European country. It was taken as an independent variable during the creation of the models.
• GDP per capita: An indicator that is determined by dividing a country's GDP by its population and shows how much a country's population is richer or poorer than another. It is a dependent variable.
• Human Development Index: An indicator that measures human development based on the following indicators: GDP per capita, literacy rate, and life expectancy. It is a dependent variable.
• Tourism Development Index: An indicator of the number of arrived tourists in a particular country for one year. It is a dependent variable.
• International Migrant Index: A total number of migrants staying in a country during a year. It is a dependent variable.
• Index of Happiness: An indicator that shows the well-being of people in different countries. It is a dependent variable.
• Gini Coefficient: An indicator that shows income inequality in a specific society. It is a dependent variable.
• Corruption Index: An index that reflects the level of corruption in a country according to entrepreneurs and analysts. It is a dependent variable.
The first step was to create a matrix chart to understand whether the indicators have a certain correlation and relationship between several variables simultaneously based on all data for each country in Microsoft Excel 2020.
The next step was the calculation of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient to check the relationship between two variables. The close relationship between the phenomena depends on their significance ( Table 1). The weak relationship is between 0.1 and 0.3, and the highest is from 0.9 to 1.0.
Spearman rank correlation coefficient helped to choose the most significant social and economic indicators for further analysis in the regression model.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
One of the fundamental principals of the European Union is equality under the laws, including different minority groups, e.g. LGBTQ+. Therefore, it was decided to collect needed data from the European countries, especially to investigate how the anti-discriminatory laws can help Ukraine become close to the EU and make changes in society. For this purpose, the data ( Table 2) were taken from the official websites of organizations and institutions involved in the development and calculation of indicators that were mentioned before: the United Nations, the World Bank, Transparency International, Ilga Europe, etc. 10 countries were taken that had different histories of development and formation: Ukraine (the country number is 1), Georgia (8), Moldova (7), Romania (10), Poland (9), Sweden (3), Germany (2), Netherlands (4), Spain (5), and Italy (6). It should be noted that the main indicator, the Rainbow Europe Index, was developed for European countries only. As a result, it is another reason why these countries were chosen for the analysis.
The abovementioned countries were divided into subgroups depending on their economic development and common history for better analysis.   The next step was the calculation of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient. After its calculating, the following results were obtained for each indicator depending on the Rainbow Europe Index (Table 3).
Analyzing the data, a high positive relationship was got between the indicators: GDP per capita, the Human Development Index, and the Corruption Index. There is a noticeable positive relationship in the Index of Happiness. The Tourism Development Index and the Gini Coefficient are in a positive moderate range. The International Migrant Index has a positive weak relationship.
Thus, the Rainbow Europe Index has a significant impact on the above indicators because there is a positive relationship between them. For example, if the Rainbow Europe Index rises by 1%, another indicator rises as well, which has a positive effect on the indicators. For instance, the absence level of corruption increases, happiness in the country also increases, the Human Development Index and GDP per capita also raise. Such a relationship is also confirmed by the results of the literature review.
After analyzing and calculating the indicators of socio-economic development of countries, it is possible to compare groups of countries and regions. Average numbers were taken for 5 indicators: GDP per capita, the Human Development Index, the Corruption Index, the Index of Happiness, and the Rainbow Europe Index. For better illustration, the Human Development Index was multiplied by 100; the Rainbow Europe Index -by 100 too; the Index of Happiness -by 10; for GDP per capita, a variable was found in the previous year, i.e. there was an increase or decrease; the Corruption Index has remained unchanged. For the first group of countries, a low level of all indicators with moderate growth was found ( Figure 2).
For the second group of countries, there was a significant decline in the index, but there was also a decline in GDP per capita and the Corruption Index ( Figure 3).
For the third group of countries, one could also see a significant decline. Since 2015, the Rainbow Europe Index has fallen by 14.5 points with a de-cline in the Happiness and Corruption Indexes ( Figure 4).
For the fourth group, there was also a slight decline with other indicators. It is clear that the recession ends when the Rainbow Europe Index rises ( Figure 5).
In the fifth group, there is a slight decline along with other indices and the leveling off when the decline in the Rainbow Europe Index disappears ( Figure 6).
Source: Developed by the authors.    . New studies show that this percentage can be even higher so more people can be identified with the LGBTQ+ community. Therefore, the migration in such countries as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia toward more gay-friendly countries as Germany and the Netherlands can be explained by this ground of discrimination. Nevertheless, people can migrate by their own will to seek job opportunities, studies, research possibilities, etc. Thus, it is hard to tell what is the reason for migration as people have their thoughts and do not necessarily declare it at the border control or when they receive a visa. Thus, it might explain why a strong relationship was not detected between migration stock and the Rainbow Europe Index.
Yet, people still migrate, and they also migrate for the reason of discrimination or persecution they have in their countries because of their sexualities or gender identities. Some government programs assist people with it. Most of them are referred to asylum seekers when a person has already arrived in a specific country and is looking for documents to stay there. The most popular destinations would be the United States, the European Union (e.g. Germany, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands), and the United Kingdom. In fact, in some countries, there is a high percentage of LGBTQ+ migrants that add up to the total number of LGBTQ+ population of a country.

CONCLUSION
Based on the study results, an indisputable link can be seen between discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and the economic and social development of society and regions. For illustration, examples of European countries were taken, where it was observed that the more tolerant society is and the more freedoms and rights are provided, the more economically and socially developed it is.
This study reaffirmed the positive relationship between the Rainbow Europe Index and GDP per capita, the Human Development Index, the Corruption Index, and the Index of Happiness. The results were proved based on graphs for groups of countries where the key index was compared with others. As International Migrant Index was not included due to the low level of relation, still the country and its level of human rights protection or social inclusion of LGBTQ+ play a significant role in choosing a new home where they can find a feeling of peace with themselves and come in terms with society. Therefore, it is essential to understand how some countries that give more rights and freedom to people might seem more attractive in terms of considering a country for living and moving out from a discriminating place.
This analysis proved the dependence of indicators and demonstrated the need to provide freedoms and rights for LGBTQ+ affiliated members in Ukraine and other European countries. It will help increase GDP per capita, the Index of Happiness, the Human Development Index, increase other indicators of socio-economic development, and reduce corruption. It should also help Ukraine successfully integrate with the European community, where human values and dignity are a top priority, to increase the level of freedoms and rights in the world and to give people the right to be themselves, which was proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.