Methodological Approaches to Constructing Human Capital Index: Regional Dimension

Abstract

The paper analyses available foreign and domestic expertise in the treatment and methods for measuring human capital. The authors identify weaknesses of a common approach to measuring human capital based on international statistical standards not adapted to national features of information and statistical support for regional analysis in the face of prominent interregional differences in socio-economic development.A methodological approach to assessing human capital is substantiated using an integral indicator that combines subindices that reflect the accumulation and reproduction of human capital. Guided by this approach and statistics on the demographic situation, upgrading knowledge, skills and strengthening the public health, including that of the working population, and based on actual data for the regions of Russia (for the year 2020), a unified summary indicator of human capital for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation was calculated and the regions were ranked by a level of human capital development.According to the authors, the developed methodological approaches to measuring the human capital index shall make it possible to take more specific action on implementing the Programme for Socio-economic Development as applied to individual Russian regions