Methodology for the index assessment of the quality of life in Russian regions

The quality of life in the modern world is one of the main drivers of effective functioning of any economic system. Economic development and the increased pace of economic growth should be accompanied by improvements in the quality of life. At the same time, the change in the socio-economic foundations, a lingering recession of the domestic economy, an increase in the autonomy of the country’s constituent entities in addressing economic and social problems without adequate financial support - all this has led to a significant differentiation in the quality of life among regions and inside them. The article presents the author’s methodology for the index assessment of the quality of life that makes it possible to avoid the drawbacks of existing techniques and enable regional comparisons. On the basis of the previously conducted systematization of theoretical approaches to determining the structure of the quality of life, the author reveals the structural blocks of the quality of life that are recognized as the minimum necessary ones and that are the most frequent in the works of Russian and foreign researchers. In accordance with the structure proposed, the author puts forward his own interpretation of the quality of life, which is understood as a comprehensive socio-economic category that characterizes the general quality situation in the physical, material, labor, and social and natural aspects of human existence in their unity and relationship. The article presents a critical analysis of statistical indicators of the quality of life, consistent with the principles of representativeness, information availability and reliability. An integral index of the quality of life is proposed, which is based on a four-component structural model (health of the population, standard of living, labor market, and life safety); thus model reflects the most significant areas of concern in the economic aspect, and helps make regional comparisons on available statistics. Its initial testing has been carried out on the data for Russian regions for 2010-2013. As a result, several groups of regions with a high, medium, low and critical quality of life have been determined. The methodology proposed in the paper has the following advantages: a small number of statistical indicators given their high accuracy; richness of content; completeness and information availability; transparency and ease of calculations; absence of expert assessments and unfounded weight coefficients; ease of interpretation of the results obtained.