Благосостояние населения региона как цель политики регионального развития

Abstract

Introduction. Regional development is currently aimed at creating conditions for human life, improving the living standard and quality of life, which is reflected in the regulatory and legal regional policy. However, the definitions of the categories “living standard” and “quality of life” are debatable; therefore, choice of tools and mechanism could arise difficulties to achieve these goals in the frame of regional development. This scientific study suggests the category “population’s well-being in the region” as one of the comprehensive goals of the regional policy to resolve these controversial issues. Purpose. The paper identifies the essential characteristics of the population's well-being in the region such as a set of benefits, their relationship and correlation with the concepts of “living standard” and “quality of life”, determines the place of this concept in the regional policy, and describes a new approach to the definition of the concept “population’s well-being in the region” from the perspective of the theory of goods. Materials and Methods. To achieve this purpose, scientific sources were theoretically analyzed, and the obtained data was synthesized to accumulate new knowledge about the category “population’s well-being in the region”. Results. The study revealed that the well–being of the population in the region is a complex and multidimensional category comprising of both the level of life and its quality for the population, as well as represented by economic and non-economic, tangible and intangible goods of a social, economic, environmental, and institutional nature. Conclusion. A region being the object of regional policy is a system of interrelated elements, therefore regional development is the subject of the regional policy with the goal to increase the well-being of the population in the region. The comprehensive nature, versatility of this human-orientated category put it to the global concept of sustainable development with due regard to the regional interests in improving the level and quality of people’s lives.