Socio-economic vulnerability of regional communities: sociological interpretation and assessment

The relevance of the study of the socio-economic vulnerability of Russian regions is due to the need to reveal their internal characteristics, indicating unresolved and emerging social problems that weaken the possibilities of regions functioning and productive dynamics. The aim of the work is to clarify the concept of socio-economic vulnerability of the regional community; to define the possibilities of its sociological measurement based on a combination of objective and subjective data; to identify significant characteristics of vulnerability of region socio-economic sphere in contemporary conditions by the example of the regions of the Central Chernozem region. The originality of its formulation and solution is associated with the interpretation of the this phenomenon through the prism of key social problems manifested in objective characteristics and subjective assessments of the population, the promotion of a methodic approach to its sociological diagnosis based on rethinking the heuristic capabilities of the methodic tools of the interregional scientific program, the assessment of important parameters of socio economic vulnerability of the Central Chernozem regions. The empirical object of research is the Central Chernozem regions of Russia - the Voronezh, Kursk and Lipetsk oblasts. The informational basis of research is the data of state statistics (Rosstat); the empirical base is the results of representative survey (N=1200 people) based on the typical program and methodic tools “Socio-cultural portrait of the Russian region”. The paper clarifies the concept of socio-economic vulnerability of regional community, understood as its condition due to the internal characteristics of the socio-economic sphere, concentrating social problems of an objective-subjective nature. It defines the possibilities of its diagnosis based on a combination of measuring objective facts and subjective assessments on a number of indicators of the typical methodic. It reveals the key vulnerabilities of the socio-economic sphere of the central chernozem regions in contemporary conditions: the prevalence of poverty and a high degree of socio-economic differentiation of the population in a subjective measurement; the downward short-term dynamics of the material status of a population significant part. The results expand the scientific understanding of the socio-economic vulnerability of regional communities and can be used to define their social problems of objective and subjective nature and to find ways to solve them.