The concept of rural vitality often used to describe the rural areas as specific areas that are of particular significance not only for the region but also the country as a whole. Depending on the objectives investigated there are different indicators used to evaluate the vitality - one of them - rural residents social portrait. Purpose of the research is to identify the impact of changes of social portrait of rural residents on rural vitality. In this study, the indicators of general censuses of 2001 and 2011 were used to assess the social portrait of rural residents. The results showed that changes of social portrait of rural residents had both positive and negative trends on rural vitality. As positive trends should be mentioned rising higher grade educated, multilingual population, a rapidly improving life and living conditions in the rural areas compared with the townspeople. The trends adversely affected the vitality of rural areas are: depopulation, the growing share of elderly in the structure of the rural population, declining rural population’s entrepreneurship, decline of number of income sources and continued growth in the share of persons living of wage labor.
JEL Codes: R20, R10, R50.
Keyword(s): public good, rural residents, rural vitality, social portrait.
Kuliešis, G.; Pareigienė, L. 2015. The development of rural residents social portrait in 2001-2011. Management theory and studies for rural business and infrastructure development = Vadybos mokslas ir studijos - kaimo verslų ir jų infrastruktūros plėtrai 37(2):231-240.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.15544/mts.2015.21 (ISSN 1822-6760 (print) / ISSN 2345-0355 (online)) [EBSCO, Business Source Complete, Ulrich’s, DOAJ, OAJI, IndexCopernicus, ERIH PLUS andAcademicKeys.com.].
Scentific Publication: The development of rural residents social portrait in 2001-2011