ASSESSMENT OF LEISURE TIME OF SOCIETY IN THE SYSTEM OF FORMATION OF HOUSEHOLD WELFARE

Abstract

With the development of market social and labor relations in Ukraine, the problem of improving the welfare of its population is becoming increasingly important, in particular the issue of increasing and effectively using the free time of its household members. The purpose of the article is to theoretically analyze the nature of leisure time of the population as one of the components of Measure of Economic Welfare of the households of the region or country as a whole and to develop possible approaches to assessing its volume. The basic approaches to the estimation of economic welfare of the population are analyzed. The necessity to consider such a component as leisure time when measuring the economic welfare of a society is substantiated. The directions of leisure use in society are characterized. The structural division of leisure into two parts, namely leisure and “more elevated activity is done”. Comparative analysis of paid work, unpaid work and leisure time in different countries is performed. It is established that in Ukraine the value of the indicator “time worked per person for the daily time fund” is much smaller than the value of this indicator for other countries. The difference in the value of the considered indicator for Ukraine and other countries is explained by the large volumes of the shadow economy and the shadow employment in our country. The average time per day spent on paid work by one person between the ages of 15-70 and working age in Ukraine in 2010-2017 without and with shadow employment is calculated. The study shows that the main measure of the level of economic well-being of the population is the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, but this indicator does not take into account the free time problem. An undeniable fact is the dependence of the well-being of the population of any society on the volume and quality of leisure use by its members. It is known that, in a highly developed economy, the income level is sufficient for a quality rest and an increase in the leisure time of a large part of the population, which is equivalent to an increase in the welfare of the country. Leisure time is an indicator of the well-being of a society, its size can be judged on the standard of living of the population.