Ukrainian social sector development in contemporary conditions: problems and areas for their solution

Abstract The article is devoted to the adaptation of social policy’s conceptual framework to war conditions, radical growth of defense spending, which, against the background of production infrastructure destruction and declining business activity, lead to critical underfunding of social sector. The authors emphasize the priority of population’s quality of life characteristics as a criterion for assessing functioning of social sector’s clusters and a basis for updating social policy’s principles and priorities. The study identified the main social sector development problems, which primarily include: limited resources in response to the social sector’s growing needs, including social protection; reduced access to medical and educational services; insufficiently effective reforms during the period of war; depopulation; increased migration flows, etc. The following priority areas have been identified for their resolution: creation of conditions for increasing the birth rate, and socialization of senior citizens; effective migration policy; reforming the wage system; simplifying access to professional pre-university and higher education; adapting the network of medical institutions to population’s growing needs; preserving and restoring social infrastructure, etc. Development and implementation of measures within the mentioned areas will contribute to social sector development and, accordingly, to the improvement of population’s quality of life.