Векторы благополучия: экономика и социум (Sep 2021)
ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING OF WELL-BEING OF THE OLD GENERATION IN TOMSK REGION (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE RUSSIAN ELDERLY WELL-BEING INDEX)
Abstract
Relevance. Global demographic aging has actualized the need to find effective solutions to a wide range of problems related to the well-being of older citizens: from financial and economic to emotional and psychological. Focusing public attention on the problems of older people entailed the demand for institutional changes, the adoption of important social and political decisions to improve the quality of life of older citizens as the fastest growing social group, the improvement of traditional and the emergence of new tools for assessing and monitoring progress in this area both at individual level and at the level of regions, countries, international organizations. In addition to indices well known in international practice (Active Aging Index and Global AgeWatch), the Russian research arsenal includes the Russian Elderly Well-being Index (REWI), developed by researchers at the International Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Technologies for Improving the Well-Being of the Elderly at Tomsk Polytechnic University. REWI is objectively not free from the shortcomings inherent in the method as a whole, however, it can be used to track the dynamics of changes in the quality of life of the older generation both for Russia as a whole and for its individual regions, compare their ranking positions within one or several periods, put forward hypotheses about the causes of changes, analyze them, formulate proposals on measures that can improve the quality of life of older people in a particular region. Objective of the study is to analyze the changes in the assessment of the well-being of older people in the Tomsk region based on the REWI materials for 2014, 2016 and 2018 and formulate conclusions based on the results of three rounds of the all-Russian study in the context of the dynamics of the quality of life of older people. Methods: statistical analysis according to the original method for calculating the REWI based on microdata from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) survey «Comprehensive observation of living conditions of the population» for 2014, 2014 and 2018. Results. The analysis showed (1) the deterioration of values for almost all domains of REWI (economy, society, health, infrastructure and quality of life in the regional dimension) in the whole of the Russian Federation for the entire observation period; (2) the deterioration of the rating positions of the Tomsk region according to the REWI in 2016 and 2018 relative to 2014, (3) a noticeable decrease in the scores for most domains and private index indicators for the Tomsk region in 2018. Conclusions. Based on the results of the analysis of the REWI values for three observation periods, conclusions were formulated both about the possibilities and objective limitations in using this index to assess the quality of life and well-being of the older generation in the Russian Federation, and to analyze the dynamics of the corresponding processes in individual regions. Assumptions are put forward about the possible reasons for the negative dynamics of the Tomsk region in the REWI rating both in general and in its individual domains and indicators. Based on the data obtained, preliminary conclusions were drawn about the risks of non-implementation of the national action plan to improve the quality of life of older people and the incomplete coordination of actions carried out in our country with international programs in this area. Perhaps these problems will be able to attract more attention, efforts and resources for their solution against the background of the immediate prospects for the introduction of the Russian elderly well-being index which is built in accordance with the international methodology.
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