IDENTIFICATION AND ASSESSMENT OF THE
shows negative trends and deterioration of not only quantitative, but also, first of all, qualitative parameters of demographic processes – the absolute and relative decrease of the rural population is accompanied by intensive aging and deterioration of the sex-age structure ( the level of demographic burden in the Zhytomyr and Chernihiv regions has reached a critical value and is approaching the mark of 700 disabled people per 1,000 able-bodied people) – table 1.
Table 1 Dynamics of the population of Ukraine and Western Polissia in 2018-2022,
as of January 1*
Indicators Years* 2022 until 2018
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 % +,-
Ukraine Available population,
total, thousands of people, including:
42,5 42,2 41,9 41,6 41,2 96,9 -1,3
- urban 29,4 29,3 29,1 29,0 28,7 97,6 -0,7
- rural 13,1 12,9 12,8 12,6 12,5 95,4 -0,6
Specific weight of population categories, % of the total:
- urban 69,2 69,4 69,5 69,7 69,7 х 0,5
- rural 30,8 30,6 30,5 30,3 30,3 х -0,5
Western Polissia Available population,
total, thousands of people, including:
4450,4 4418,6 4383,9 4348,1 4301,4 96,6 -149,0 - urban 2482,6 2467,3 2452,9 2436,3 2411,8 97,1 -70,8 - rural 1967,8 1951,3 1931,0 1911,8 1889,6 96,0 -78,2 Specific weight of
population categories, % of the total:
- urban 55,8 55,8 55,9 56,0 56,1 х 0,3
- rural 44,2 44,2 44,1 44,0 43,9 х -0,3
Source: calculated from data http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/.
During the period of 2018-2022, the total number of the existing population of the Western Polissia decreased by 149,000 people (3.4%), including the rural population - by 70,800 people (2.9%). The rate of reduction of the rural population is much higher than that of the urban population. In addition, the share of the rural population decreases every year in all regions of the studied region (except Volyn). It was established that in recent years there has been not only a reduction in the number of the rural population in the Western Polissia of Ukraine, but also a significant change in the structure of its employment, including in the agricultural sector. According to the data of the sample survey of the economic activity of the rural population, it was determined that the highest specific weight of the self-employed in the rural areas of Rivne region is 84.9%, the lowest is in Chernihiv region – 68.6%.
In the context of this study, Borodina O.M. and Prokop I.V. they rightly point out that work in agriculture for hire is increasingly becoming either less accessible or less acceptable for the rural population. If in the 1990s it was due to the economic crisis, which was accompanied by a decline in production in agricultural formations where rural residents worked, then during 2001-2010, agricultural enterprises, narrowing specialization and intensifying production, resorted to reducing the number of employees. Freed persons moved to farms and, mainly, to personal peasant farms, and the total number and share of those employed in agricultural production decreases every year [2, p. 138-139].
As a result, two interrelated problems - social-demographic and organizational-production – are intensifying in the OTG located in the rural areas of Western Polissia, as well as in Ukraine as a whole. The first and its consequences were disclosed above, and the essence of the second is that nowadays agricultural activity, in its technical and technological essence, is developing in the direction of the development of agricultural holdings and agro-corporations with a clearly expressed tendency to reduce jobs and a sharp reduction in employment needs, as evidenced by the indicators are given below (Table 2).
Table 2 Employed population of the region of Western Polissia and Ukraine aged 15
and older in 2021. (quarterly), thousands of people
Country/regions January –March January –June January-September
January – December
Ukraine 15488,4 15665,8 15798,8 15693,4
Western Polissia, in total,
including: 1675,3 1703,3 1721,3 1706,1
Volyn 354,8 363,0 364,4 361,3
Zhytomyr 474,3 482,2 486,5 481,1
Rivne 452,8 458,4 467,7 463,6
Chernihiv 393,4 399,7 402,7 400,1
Western Polissia to
Ukraine, % 10,8 10,9 10,9 10,9
Source: calculated from data http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/
The data in Table 2 confirm that the seasonality of production, as the main feature of the agricultural sector, determines the seasonality of work in the rural areas of Western Polissia, since the highest number of employed people falls in the 3rd quarter of the year (January-September) – 1,721 thousand people aged 15 and older, which is 10.9% of the total number of people employed in Ukraine. It is worth noting that from 2021, the bodies of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine will calculate the indicator of the informally employed population by region (Table 3).
Table 3 Informally employed population of the Western Polissia region and
Ukraine in 2021
Country/regions
Number of informally employed population aged 15-70, thousands of people
In % to number of employed population aged 15-70 in
the respective region
of 2020
Ukraine 3018,4 19,3 93,2
Western Polissia, in
total, including: 466,2 27,4 х
Volyn 105,1 29,2 96,8
Zhytomyr 93,1 19,4 89,4
Rivne 204,1 44,8 97,7
Chernihiv 63,9 16,0 96,8
Western Polissia to
Ukraine, % 15,4 х х
Source: calculated from data http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/
According to the Methodological Regulations of the state statistical observation
"Workforce Survey", this is the number of informally employed population (the indicator characterizes the number of employed population of a certain age who, during the observed week, were employed at enterprises of the informal sector, worked for free at registered enterprises, in their own business, owned household members, or in informal workplaces of the formal sector [3, p. 7].
The level of unemployment (according to the ILO methodology) in % of the workforce of working age in the regions belonging to the territory of Western Polissia in 2021 was: Volyn – 13.0%; Zhytomyr – 11.6%; Rivne – 10.5%; Chernihiv – 12.9%.
The share of full-time employees of enterprises, institutions, organizations of agriculture and related industries in the regions of Western Polissia is critically low and ranges from 3.2% in Rivne region to 11.3% in Chernihiv region. In addition, according to M.M. Tymoshenko's calculations, the share of households in rural areas of Western Polissia in which there are no working persons is 39.6%, and one working person is 48.3% [4, p. 136]. The results of the study show that the zone of Western Polissia has preserved a significant potential of labor resources, in particular those of working age, who can be directly involved in agricultural production, as well as in the social and cultural and household spheres, trade, forestry, realize themselves as entrepreneurs in starting non-agricultural activities.
The conducted research shows that in the rural areas of the natural-economic zone of Western Polissia there is hidden unemployment, structural disproportions between the workforce and workplaces. The creation of a dynamic labor market in the studied region requires complex activities in a wide range of directions, the basic of which are the employment of the unemployed, their social adaptation and psychological support, professional training and counseling, support for entrepreneurship and self-employment, stimulation of the development of alternative types of employment in the countryside, diversification of agrarian entrepreneurship, etc.
In modern conditions, the importance of the informational component of socio-economic development is growing dynamically. In this context, the issue of implementing the policy of interaction of rural communities with employers is not an exception, which requires appropriate information support, the system of which will include operational information on the number of unemployed and qualitative characteristics of vacant places in the respective territories. The creation of such a system will contribute to the emergence of positive external effects, since the demand for the services of such an information system will grow with the increase in the scope of its coverage of the territorial labor market.
Integration within the framework of the system of diverse areas of activity regarding the regulation of labor supply and demand, in particular regarding the collection and accumulation of relevant information, forecasting changes in the labor market, unemployment insurance, professional retraining, etc., will create opportunities to provide the relevant self-government bodies with the necessary information and develop a public interaction program with producers of agricultural products. A necessary element of the proposed system is a block of informational and methodological support, which will include information on the legal framework, regulatory law and duties of citizens on the labor market (including legal relations of social protection of the population), institutions operating on it, their powers and opportunities for regulation social and labor problems, studying the needs of rural residents.
The formation of territorial information systems of the interaction of the rural community with other subjects should be aimed at ensuring the variability of decision-making and reducing the level of resource costs by the subjects of interaction - the main component of the policy of the development of rural areas. The key direction in the development of cooperation between rural communities through territorial information centers is to ensure productive employment, carry out professional retraining of the population, provide information on the sales markets of agricultural products grown on private farms, identify needs for the development of the social infrastructure of a specific village.
Referenses
1. Sokolova A.O. The current state, problems and prospects of employment of the rural population of the Volyn region. Economic Forum. 2012. No. 1. P.442-450.
2. Borodina O.M., Prokopa I.V. The village and the peasantry are at the crossroads of opportunities and the crossroads of hopes. Economics and forecasting. 2016. No. 2.
P. 132-147.
3. Methodological provisions of the state statistical observation "Workforce
Survey", Kyiv, 2021, URL:
http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/norm_doc/2021/324/metod_ORS.pdf. (date of application:
10.03.2023).
4. Tymoshenko M.M. The strategy of sustainable development of rural areas of Ukraine and the economic mechanism of its implementation: monograph. Zhytomyr:
Publisher O.O. Evenok, 2018, 332 p.
5. Socio-economic problems of the development of rural areas: regional aspect:
col. monograph / [V.I. Tkachuk, A.O. Sokolova, T.M. Ratoshn iuk at all.]; under the editorship V.I. Tkachuk; Ruta Publishing House, 2014, 356 p.