Rozwój gospodarczy a kapitał ludzki na terenach wiejskich w Polsce

Abstract

The main aim of this paper was to assess the level of human capital in rural areas of Poland and to make its cross-regional comparison. There was proposed the human resource development index or human capital index having six essential elements (education, enterpreunarship, economic activity, employment, health, and migration). In 2007, the opolskie, slaskie and malopolskie provinces were characterised by the highest levels of the human capital in rural areas.The paper provides also the investigation of the link between rural human capital and economic development in Polish regions concluding that in the slaskie, mazowieckie and wielkopolskie provinces high level of rural human capital was accompanied by high level of regional economic development as measured by GDP per capita. The results of human capital study at the individual level (questionnaire study in the sample of 120 farm owners from Mazovia and Podlasie regions, 2009) show that the education is the main determinant of farmer’s human capital improvement.