Human capital and well-being in Romania's strategic documents: from catching-up to reactive positioning

This paper examines how human capital and well-being are conceptualised and articulated within Romania's national strategic documents, and how this articulation changed before and after 2020. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 14 national strategies, amounting to more than 1,500 pages, the study uses the OECD well-being framework as an analytical lens to assess the integration of human capital into Romanian policy discourse. The documents were divided into two strategic periods, marking the shift between two MFFs, and the pre- and post-pandemic period, and coded using MAXQDA 24, with particular attention to causal relations between human capital, education, skills, well-being, disparities, digitalisation, and the green transition. The findings reveal that disparities remain a central node in both periods, reflecting a persistent concern with territorial, social, educational, and digital inequalities. However, after 2020, Romanian strategies display a visible reorientation towards resilience, competitiveness, and preparedness, especially in relation to the green and digital transitions. Education remains the dominant pillar of human capital, while health, well-being, civic engagement, and social cohesion are less explicitly integrated. The paper argues that Romania's strategic discourse is moving from a catching-up logic towards a more reactive positioning shaped by European and OECD frameworks. Nevertheless, human capital remains insufficiently conceptualised as a unified and dynamic policy category, requiring greater coherence in future strategic frameworks.