Indicators of demographic development as assessment of the state management efficiency (the case of European countries)

The article deals with the issues of demographic development in European countries. The authors clarify the concepts of «social management» and «state administration,» and substantiate expediency of considering demographic indicators as specific criteria of the state administration efficiency. They propose a set of indexes calculated by the World Bank methods as quantitative instruments for measuring governance efficiency, and prove on the basis of statistical data the hypothesis that raising the efficiency of governance results in a statistically significant improvement of the demographic situation.