Human-Centred Digital Progress in Europe: a non-compensatory Quality of Life index for the Homo Digitalis transition

Digital technologies are often assumed to improve quality of life, although digital progress may coexist with weak social, economic and human outcomes. This study addresses two questions: to what extent do European countries combine digital capabilities with broader quality-of-life achievements, and which countries display comparatively strong digital capabilities but weaker non-digital human outcomes? To answer these questions, the Human-Centred Digital Progress Index (HCDPI) is developed, which is a non-compensatory monitoring and diagnostic tool based on the Capability Approach and multi-dimensional measurement of well-being. The index is constructed by combining digital capabilities – approximated by digital skills – with six other nondigital domains, namely: material and economic security; housing, environment and safety; human work quality; health; social embeddedness, trust and citizenship; and equality and inclusion. The empirical investigation employs a cross-sectional dataset of 25 Eurostat indicators centred on the year 2023, for 34 European countries which fulfil the minimum requirement of multi-dimensionality. The Human-Centred Digital Progress Index is supplemented with the relative digital-human typology, residual-gap analysis on the country level conditional on digital capabilities and GDP per capita, external validation using overall life satisfaction, and sensitivity analyses. Spain, France and Estonia combine above-median digital capability with below-median non-digital human quality, whereas Slovenia, Poland and Slovakia display the opposite configuration. The three high digital / low human cases remain in this group across all alternative specifications considered. The residual-gap analysis further identifies marked differences in countries’ non-digital humanquality performance conditional on digital capability and economic resources. The HCDPI is strongly associated with overall life satisfaction and remains highly stable across alternative specifications. The paper contributes a transparent, human-centred and non-compensatory framework for monitoring whether digital capabilities are accompanied by balanced quality-of-life achievements.