Social Mobility of the Labor Force: Assessment in the Republic of Belarus (Regional Aspect)

Abstract

The world community emphasizes the problem of growing inequality in the world, among the causes of which are the rapid development of technologies and globalization processes, and pays a special role to increasing social mobility as a key direction for solving this issue. The increasing influence of social mobility on the economy, confirmed by the results of a number of studies, increases the relevance of determining the level of social mobility, including for the Republic of Belarus. The absence of a country among the participants of the GSMI (Global Social Mobility Index) rating and the consequences arising in this regard, primarily related to the difficulty of assessing social mobility in the republic, increase the need to develop an integrated approach to this issue. Thus, the article proposes the author’s methodology for assessing the social mobility of the labor force in the Republic of Belarus, taking into account the national peculiarities of providing official statistical information in open access, suggesting a comparative analysis of the country’s regions in three directions: equal employment opportunities, fair and safe work, and improving living standards.The purpose of the research is to determine the level of social mobility in the labor market of the Republic of Belarus, having previously studied the results of foreign experience in assessing and regulating this phenomenon.Empirical base and research methods. The empirical base is the data of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus, formed both at the national level and in the context of the regions of the country. The work is based on general scientific research methods, as well as comparative analysis methods.Results. To achieve this goal, a number of tasks were solved: according to the developed methodology, the positions of the country’s regions in the proposed rating of social mobility of the workforce were determined, followed by their comparison with the national level; a “problem field” was formed for each region separately; the leaders and “outsiders” of the rating have been identified. A number of barriers preventing a comprehensive assessment of the social mobility of the labor force in the Republic of Belarus were identified. In particular, a number of indexes are listed that are of interest from the point of view of their application in calculating the proposed index, but are not used due to statistical inaccessibility in a regional context.Conclusion. The practical value of the paper lies in the possibility of applying its results in the process of making managerial decisions in the field of state regulation of the labor market. The proposed methodology for determining the level of social mobility of the workforce can significantly expand the understanding of the social and labor sphere of the Republic of Belarus, complementing the traditional approach to analyzing the state of the labor market of our country. The formation of an appropriate database, taking into account the proposed recommendations for the provision of individual statistical indexes by regions of the country, will significantly increase the objectivity of the rating of social mobility of the workforce presented in the framework of this study.