DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL FACTORS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE: TRENDS IN CHANGE

The article examines the key demographic trends and dynamics of social infrastructure development in rural areas of Ukraine in historical retrospect (1959-2021). The regional specificity of rural population depopulation is determined with an emphasis on sex and age structure transformations, and the regions are grouped by the nature of changes in rural fertility and mortality. The dynamics and peculiarities of the development of the social sphere of life support, which is considered as the basis for the preservation and reproduction of human capital in rural areas, are analyzed. The novelty of the study is the analysis of the long-term depopulation demographic trend, as well as changes in the development of social infrastructure in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, with the presentation of examples of mapping schemes illustrating these processes.