Development of Human Potential in Countries of the European Union

Abstract

Now in today's economy there are high requirements to the quality of human resources in connection with their priority role for economic growth in comparison with material resources. The concept of human capital is often used in economic literature and becomes too narrow. Therefore, consideration of the concept of human potential, expressing a variety of personal abilities of the individual, realization of which brings him not only economic benefits, is important. The aim is the comprehensive statistical analysis of human development in the European Union. The target of this research – countries of the European Union and their social and economic situation in the modern world. The subject of research - quantitative regularities and factors of cross-country differences of statistical indicators characterizing human development. To implement this target the authors have implemented the following tasks: 1. To implement the group data by the level of human development in countries which belong to the European Union, with the release of groups with different levels of human development in 2012 and 2013, respectively; 2. To rank the EU countries according to values of human development index in 2012 and 2013; 3. To assess changes in the ranking of countries in 2013 compared with 2012.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s3p351