Trends of Economic Activity of the Population in Rural Areas of Ukraine

Abstract

Annotation. Introduction. The implementation of measures to reform the economy as a whole, agrarian reform and, in particular, land relations in agriculture, was one of the factors influencing the change in the structure of the resident population in terms of economic activity and changes in the agricultural labor market. Analysis of the distribution of the population of Ukraine by economic activity indicates a decrease by almost one third of the number of the economically active population in 2019 compared to 2000. There is also a trend towards a decrease in the number of those employed in economic activity. Purpose. The aim of the article is exploration of employment indicators (formal and informal) and unemployment of the rural population in Ukraine and identification of the main trends. Results. It has been established that the employed rural population is less educated and, accordingly, they perform mostly unattractive types of work that do not require high qualifications. It was revealed that workers in rural settlements have fewer job opportunities at their place of residence. In villages, the number of people who are employers is almost half. The biggest problem in rural areas is self-employment or predominantly employment in private households. A sharp increase in the share of unemployed youth who cannot find a job after graduating from educational institutions has been established. The situation with regard to youth employment in the villages of Ukraine is especially difficult. It turned out that 2/3 of workers in rural areas are employed in the informal sector. Moreover, two urban residents of this sector prefer hired labor, in agriculture, on the contrary, self-employed make up 74.0%, that is, they work in a peasant farm for agricultural products. In half of the cases, informal employment is carried out in agriculture. Conclusions. The unemployed urban dweller is more educated and therefore has more advantages over the rural dweller in terms of employment. Unemployed people in cities have more opportunities to choose a job, therefore they are more active when they leave their jobs of their own accord and depend on the seasonality of their work. For 1990-2019 the average number of fulltime agricultural enterprises decreased 12.2 times due to the liquidation of agricultural enterprises. One of the reasons was the denationalization and privatization of enterprises in Ukraine, especially in rural areas, which were not supplemented by effective mechanisms for the employment of people, including by promoting the development of entrepreneurial activity.