Measurement of the Agrarian Sector Performance with Account of the Recommendations of Stiglitz Commission

Abstract

The social welfare in Ukraine is measured by territorial location of the population (rural and municipal), which is required for the even extended reproduction of human capital and comprehensive development of a human with account for social issues . Recommendations on social welfare measurement, given by the Commission on measurement of economic performance and social progress (Stiglitz Commission), are reviewed . Stiglitz Commission points out to the need for re-emphasizing the existing measurement system from economic production to human welfare, by linking it to the sustained development This approach requires a statistical system that would supplement the market performance indicators with the indicators measuring human welfare and the sustained development The benchmark for human welfare measurement is measurement of the material welfare or the living standards.

Recommendations given by Stiglitz Commission are adapted to the analysis of level and quality of life of the Ukrainian population, using the data collected by the Ukrainian State Statistics Service (USSS) . The following data are taken for the analysis: key macroindicators of the Ukrainian economy; parameters of the labor market in rural and municipal areas of Ukraine; structure of monetary incomes of Ukrainian households in rural and municipal areas; data produced from the sample survey of households, as of January 1, 2014; data on self-appraisal of own incomes by Ukrainian population and their economic expectations, produced from the USSS survey; data on subjective appraisal of the welfare, produced from the USSS survey, which covered males and females aged 15-24 aimed to find out their satisfaction by various aspects of life.

The following conclusions are made from the analysis: (i) the shrinking employment in the Ukrainian agrarian sector entails the reducing share of salary in the structure of monetary incomes of the rural population; because the salary still remains a major source of income for the rural population, the latter’s material welfare has been deteriorating; (ii) the rural population have far lesser demand for money than the municipal one, to provide for the welfare level referred by themselves as sufficient; (iii) the rural residents suffer more than the municipal ones from virtually all the kinds of poverty and deprivation; (iv) the rural females have higher level of life satisfaction than the municipal ones, which may be explained by more modest demands of the former.