DEMOGRAPHICAL LIVABILITY OFBULGARIAN MUNICIPALITIES

Abstract

The article presents an attempt to construct an universal indicator for assessing the viability - demographic and labor-economic - of municipalities and settlements in Bulgaria. The study is intended as a theoretical introduction to a larger study of the factors and their indicators that mark the presence or absence of minimum conditions for sustainable demographic, and hence for socio-economic development of small administrative units like municipalities. The emphasis is placed on the relationship between the reproduction and the quality of regional labor resources and its impact on the deepening of spatial inequalities in the levels of demographic and socio- economic development of municipalities in the country. For this purpose, an algorithm from the arsenal of multidimensional statistical analysis was used - the so-called a benchmark of development, in which the most favorable indicators for the demographic processes and structures for the demographic and socio-economic development of the Bulgarian municipalities are set. The bench- mark also presents key indicators of the quality of municipal labor resources, such as the changes in the educational structure of their elderly population during the period 2001-2020.