Regional Differentiation for Life Quality of the Population in Ukraine Under Innovative Growth

Abstract

Abstract The article focuses on the analysis of economic growth of Ukraine and its regions, using the proposed by the authors indicators of quality and indicators of the population living standards under innovation growth. The main purpose of the research is developing a method of multi-factor assessment and regional classification of population`s life quality. Moving to the results literature review showed that many approaches to assessing the quality of life of the population have been developed in the statistical theory and practice. However, still, there are many discussions about the question of a single aggregate indicator of living standards and the methodology of regional differentiation by this criterion. So, it has not been found a rational way to combine indicators of the level and quality of life to obtain a comprehensive index that reflects objectively, reliably and verifiable the population`s level and quality of life. The main discovered disadvantage of existing methods is the use of the expert estimation method, which does not allow guaranteeing validity the weight of the criteria for estimation the quality of life indicator. Nevertheless, all authors admitted that today the role of the state rises in solving the most important social and economic problems, therefore, the task to increase the efficiency of the regions` functioning based on innovation activity becomes of key importance. The analysis of regional activity`s effectiveness considering the innovation component is the most important part of national administration. In the article the research of the question of multi-factor assessment and regional classification the quality of the country population`s life is carried out in the following logical sequence: theoretical analysis of categories of living standards and quality of life; development of the statistical indicators system at the regional level for assessing the quality of life of the population; distribution of the entire system of indicators for certain economic categories; receiving indexes for each region by each category; realization of regional clustering with the received system of indexes. The methodical tools of the research were general scientific methods: analysis (conducted analysis of definitions for concepts of the standard of living and quality of life); synthesis (combination of separate research methods into a unified methodology of regional differentiation by the quality of life); deduction (initially it is analyzed all the proposed systems of indicators in general, and then they are divided into economic categories); abstraction (separation of a significant indicators system for the implementation of regional differentiation in terms of innovation development of the living standard of the population from the entire statistical information), specification (revealing specific characteristics of the received categories and clusters); comparison (comparison of regions according to the indicators of the population`s life quality level), classification (grouping of individual indicators into economic categories); generalization (with the help of which conclusions were drawn). There were also used some special methods: cluster methods (the tree clustering method and k-means clustering of the regions of Ukraine by the basic indicators of population`s living standards), the method of the main components (for the development of regional indexes for each category). The research was carried out for the data of 2017 year as the last year, for which statistical information is available with most indicators in a regional context. The object of the study is Ukraine and its 24 regions. The city of Kyiv was highlighted as the capital. The article presents the results of the empirical analysis of the level and quality of population`s life indicators, which allowed to allocate five clusters and a set of indicators for regional differentiation. The study empirically confirms the presence of regional clusters in the category of living standards and theoretically proposes a methodology for its implementation in conditions of innovative development. The results of the study can be useful for analyzing various scenarios for the implementation of social policy aimed at financial and economic protection of the population ensuring. It was shown that for certain regions the quality of population`s life should be considered as a task of their innovative growth.