Selected determinants of human capital of rural population in Poland

Agnieszka Wrzochalska

Abstract: Since the second half of the last century, numerous social considerations have been influenced by the new economy. This concept is closely related to the impact of the human factor on economic growth. Therefore, the growing importance of investments in people to attain the next stages of economic progress is typical of development of countries in the world. Education and healthcare expenditures are regarded in the literature as investments in the quality of human capital16, whose potential increases by investing in people themselves. The quality of human capital increases primarily through: education, further education and training of human resources, scientific research and gathering information (including making it accessible) or through healthcare actions, which in turn affect the length of human life and vitality. Since Poland’s accession to the European Union, inter alia, a number of positive developments have been observed in rural areas in terms of the level of education or educational activity of the rural population. At the same time, modernization and an increase in the average size of agricultural holdings have been noted. Furthermore, emerging village deagrarisation has indirectly contributed to the gradual blurring of differences in the standards of living of the rural and urban population. At the same time, the last ten years have enabled the rural population to benefit from EU funds, including CAP instruments, and also enter the single EU labour market. Technological advancements in agriculture, a change in the nature of Polish holdings and the increased diversification of economic activity of the agricultural population contributed to a significant decline in agricultural employment. In 1995-2011, the number of people employed in Polish agriculture fell by almost 40%. Despite the ongoing developments in relation to the location of economic activity of the agricultural population, Poland is still a country with relatively high agricultural employment. In accordance with Eurostat data, 12.6% of all working Poles were employed in Polish agriculture in 2011. Among the EU Member States, only the Romanian economy is characterised by higher agricultural employment, i.e. 28.6% of the working population employed in the agricultural sector. In general, due to the relatively high level of employment in Polish agriculture, no significant improvement can be observed in terms of land and capital of agricultural holdings, thus curtailing growth in both labour productivity and income earned by people employed in agriculture19. At the same time, excessive agricultural employment results in high scale of unused labour resources, which is reflected in scale of hidden unemployment. Research material includes IAFE-NRI survey results of 201123 (surveys based on a sample of 8,5 thousand rural families, of which 3 310 families owned agricultural holdings with over 1 ha of agricultural land24). The families were surveyed in 76 villages located in different regions of the country. The sampling was purposeful and took account of socio-economic features and the agrarian structure of agricultural holdings situated within the selected regions. All families residing in selected villages were surveyed. The scope of the information collected was extensive and concerned numerous aspects of life of the rural population and the functioning of agricultural holdings The results of surveys carried out mainly in 2000 and 2005 on a similar sample were used as a reference point to determine the dynamics of developments. Research results from field studies were supplemented with the CSO public statistics.

Keywords: education; EU; human capital; Poland; rural areas

Date published: 2017-10-09