The impact of socio-economic policy on the measure of prosperity of selected voivodships

Abstract

There is no clear-cut definition and measure of prosperity and economic well-being. It depends
on individual attitude and vigour as well as political, economic and cultural conditions. Lately,
measures of quality of life are used for the estimation of socio-economic well-being of territorial
units smaller than the state, because of increasing differentiation between populations of
regions and cities of the same state. The paper looks at the issue of regional differentiation of
socio-economic development. There was made an assessment on quality of life using special
constructed parameters and indicators. The research covers polish regions. A special attention
is paid to 5 selected polish provinces. The quality of life, prosperity and well being depend not
only on economic factors. Except of economic indexes (GNP, GDP), for estimating of living
standards, very important are human development indicators, political and cultural conditions.
Significant impact on the level of social development is the quality of human capital. The
socio-political environment has limited influence on the social condition of man and his sense
of satisfaction . It was found slight impact of economic situation on the perceived quality of
life. Quality of life survey should be used to assess the effectiveness of socio-economic policy.