Human potential and population quality: approaches to determining

This article presents the results of a study of the concepts of "human potential" and "quality of life." The history of the emergence and development of these concepts from the categories of “labor resources” and “labor potential. It is shown how each next category overcame the shortcomings of the previous one and expanded understanding of the significance of man for the economy. If labor resources reflected only the size of the able-bodied population, then labor potential, along with quantitative characteristics, began to include the productive abilities of the population. Further, overcoming the insufficiency of the category of labor potential to describe human participation in new economic processes, the concept of the human potential of the economy appeared, including direct and indirect productive abilities and needs of the population. Born in the framework of economic science, this concept was expanded and in general terms, human potential considers all abilities, needs, leisure and interpersonal relationships, i.e. all quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the population, regardless of participation in economic activity. The etymology of the concepts of "human potential" and "quality of the population" is considered, a conclusion is made about their synonymy. Two aspects of the concept of quality are distinguished: intrinsic and evaluative. The characteristics and quality structure of the population are investigated. Different definitions of the concepts of "human potential" and "quality of the population" are derived from different points of view and in relation to different applied problems.