Vasilenko I.V. The Dynamic Potential of Society
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/lp.jvolsu.2018.1.7
Inna V. Vasilenko
Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor, Department of Sociology,
Volgograd State University
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Prosp. Universitetsky, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation
Abstract. The article attempts at constructing the methodological foundations of study of the social potential of the country, the region as a macro-social structure, the contradictions within which negatively affect the well-being of the population, its motivation and behavior. This article clarifies the concept of “dynamic potential of the society” as a set of changes occurring with all kinds of resources and opportunities of the society towards their increase or decrease. The dynamic Foundation of this potential is the human potential. Human potential is measured by the state of the population, including the working-age population, the level of employment and unemployment, labor productivity and motivation, the degree of differentiation of wages, the proportion of low-income population, the dynamics of employment of persons with higher education. The article presents some result of empirical research of human potential components, including the analysis of statistical data and some results of sociological research conducted by the survey method in the Volgograd region. In Russia, the demographic situation has improved considerably in recent years, but modern fertility parameters remain problematic. One of these problems is the decline in the number of women aged 20 to 29. In most regions of the Russian Federation, including in the Volgograd region there is a decrease in the population (human potential), including a constant tendency to reduce the population at working age. This situation leads to an increase in the demographic burden. Human potential indicators (employment rate, growth rate of new jobs) have a steady downward trend. In General, Russia is one of the countries with a low unemployment rate, but economic activity is low, due to the wide spread of new forms of employment: freelancing and autstaffing, as well as the precariat, as a layer of workers who work in illegal forms of employment. The positive dynamics of the society's potential is directly related to the level of labor productivity, which is characterized by instability and fluctuations and affects the decrease in motivation to work. The data of empirical research conducted by the author allow to reveal a stable causal relationship: “low wages-low motivation to work – low productivity”. The article shows that the development of human potential in Russia and the region under study depends on the size of wages of the working-age population and the level of its differentiation by territorial entities, which is very high. According to an empirical study in the Volgograd region in 2015, more than half of respondents could not meet their needs for quality education, more than 80.0 % – in quality medical care, 90.0 % – in quality recreation. It is concluded that at present the state and dynamics of the human potential of the Russian society in General, and the Volgograd region in particular, requires efforts to form internal and external factors that can ensure its development and dynamics.
Key words: potential of the society, human potential, dynamic potential of the society, the number of able-bodied population, motivation to work, freelance, precariat, differentiation of wages, unbalanced development of human potential in the territory.
The Dynamic Potential of Society by Vasilenko I.V. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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