Well-being as an imperative of Ukraine's social development

Abstract

Introduction. The need for search for new scientific approaches to understanding social progress in modern science took shape in the «economics of happiness» and measuring sustainable development beyond GDP. Purpose. To justify the need for treating well-being as an imperative of social development of Ukraine. Results. The state of the social development of Ukraine has been considered through the prism of indicators beyond GDP and, by the results of clustering with Kohonen's self-organising maps (SOM). There here have been distinguished five clusters by the position of the rating change: «Catastrophic Decline», «Sharp Drop», «Moderate Drop», «Almost Unchanged» and «High Growth». Ukraine is included in the «Almost Unchanged» cluster. Based on the Prosperity Index for 2015, the sub-indices of the economy and public administration of Ukraine are found to be the lowest of all the countries included in the calculation of the index. In terms of the Prosperity Index, a general profile of Ukraine as a country with poor economy, public administration, health and freedom of the individual and a satisfactory level of entrepreneurship and opportunity, education, safety, security and social capital has been defined. The author's definition of well-being as an opportunity to meet human and community needs which contribute to their physical, spiritual, social and physical development harmonised with ethical standards and the need to preserve the environment has been offered. Conclusions. Well-being understood as a comprehensive depoliticised concept will allow for unification of the Ukrainian society in the conditions of conflict and controversy and ensure the transition to a sustainable improvement of the quality of life in the country.