The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) declined a multidimensional approach
to measure equitable and sustainable well-being (Benessere Equo Sostenibile, BES) at a
detailed territorial level, that is, at the provincial level (NUTS3) entailing a wide spectrum
of indicators grouped into domains related to Health, Education, Work and life balance,
Economic well-being, Social relationships, Politics and institutions, Security, Landscape
and cultural heritage, Environment, Innovation research and creativity, and Quality of services.
These indicators can help in describing the territories because they can spot situations
of concern, such as in the South of Italy. The gap between North and South Italy
has increased over time, a picture we can describe using each of the indicators, but also
by jointly considering them by using a factor analysis and clustering and constructing a
composite indicator. Contrary to some researchers who have suggested the employment of
time series indicators for the period 2004–2016 looking for a latent factor, that takes into
account the joint temporal trend of the indicators, in this paper, the situation among three
different moments over time is compared: before the 2008 crisis and a few years after it. To
do this, we have chosen a certain number of indicators on the basis of their features.
