Actual Issues of Improving the Methodological Approaches to Estimation of Population’s Living Standards: A Regional Aspect

The urgency of studying and evaluating such a social and economic category as “living standards” is due to the need to comply with the standards established within the framework of the Concept of the Social and Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2020, as well as in the Main Directions of the Government of the Russian Federation until 2018. Within the framework of the set tasks, it is necessary to ensure a stable and dynamic improvement of the living standards, as well as the solution of demographic, social and environmental problems. Different regions of such a large-scale state differ in the profile of the population, the degree of accessibility of certain resources, and, therefore, the living standards. The regional differentiation of the Russian Federation is so great that the definition of the population’s living standards throughout its territory does not lend itself to comparable quantities, which justifies the difficulty of identifying the most significant criteria that determine this indicator. Thus, when assessing the Russia’s population’s living standards, it is necessary to use the toolkit that would emphasize such a pronounced differentiation of incomes in the country. The article analyzes the category “population’s living standards”, examines the most significant, from the author’s point of view, modern techniques and identifies their positive and negative sides for the purpose of the further development of an effective system for assessing the living standards in the Russian Federation.