Role of human capital in sustainable development of Polish voivodeships

The significance of human capital for sustainable development has become a key area of research, especially in the context of regional disparities. The study contributes new knowledge by revealing statistically measurable links between the level of human capital development and the degree of achievement of sustainable development goals at the regional level. The main goal of this paper is to assess the impact of human capital on sustainable development across all 16 voivodeships in Poland, analysing the social, economic, and environmental dimensions. To provide a more comprehensive understanding, typological analyses were also conducted to classify regions based on synthetic indicators of human capital and sustainable development. Using cross-sectional data from 2022 provided by Statistics Poland, we employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the structural relationships. Our results reveal a strong and statistically significant positive relationship between human capital and sustainable development (path coefficient = 0.875, p < 0.001). The social (loading = 0.912) and economic (loading = 0.884) dimensions strongly, positively reflect the sustainability construct, while the environmental dimension exhibits a moderately negative loading (–0.678), indicating possible trade-offs in policy priorities. The findings highlight regional variation, with Mazowieckie, Małopolskie, Dolnośląskie, and Pomorskie achieving the highest scores, and Lubuskie performing the lowest across both human capital and sustainability categories. This study contributes novel insights by applying a hierarchical PLS-SEM model and offering a regionally comparative typology. It underscores the importance of tailoring environmental policies to specific regional contexts to ensure that investments in human capital do not undermine ecological sustainability.