Value principles of the equilibrium economic development in the new global challenges

The paper reveals that the formation of the information society at the turn of the century with a focus on a network economy marked the beginning of the economic relations and laws system global modification. This modification is due primarily to the latest technological changes and innovations in information and communication. However, in its profound nature, it has a value character and is associated with the need for a thorough understanding of the new socio-economic picture of the world. The traditional interpretation of this situation does not meet public expectations about progressive, creative development possibilities. Public dissatisfaction with globalisation is growing. Phenomena of socio-economic instability (turbulence) and uncertainty undermine the civilisational foundations of the social economy, create several global challenges and threats. It is shown that an adequate guideline for successful management is to ensure balanced social development through the development of a holistic institutional architecture, which operates under the laws of effective economic equilibrium. Economic theory is designed to substantiate the laws of operation and the principles of building the institutional architecture of management. At the same time, modern economics remains traditional, while the correct answer to the global social demand must be given by relativistic economics, which can form the socio-economic foundations of the phenomenon of relativity. It is determined that the concept of the institute as a transformed form of economic value (economic good, the only one in the triple definition of marginal utility, value, and price) is an adequate basis for building relativistic economics, methodological source of creative knowledge and formation of the latest holistic picture of the world. It is noted that the tools of value economic analysis (in particular, the model of general economic equilibrium) were formed in the depths of classical political economy, but today it needs to be updated. It is established that the methodological restoration of economics as a valuable source of a positive relativistic understanding of the latest world picture is an essential agenda for further creative research to determine the principles of building an economy of trust forerunner of the institutional architecture. The basis of such an economy is a public sector model focusing on the market of public goods, which harmonises the system of public interests, processes of self-organisation and organisation in the economy, thus contributing to the formation of effective mechanisms for stabilising social development.

Typification of representative philosophical and religious perceptions of Ukrainian internet audience

The article aims to identify the particularities of philosophical and religious thinking inherent in the social network audience of Ukraine. Discourse analysis was chosen as the primary method to analyse a set of posts in the form of quotes with accompanying visual components and comments to them that were posted on “Facebook” in 2020 on the pages of public groups “Ukraine is Free World”, “For Ukraine”, “Dialogue.UA” and private groups “Ukrainians Global Network”, “Ukraine is You”, “Ukraine Onlineツ. The author analysed a total of 630 posts with God’s obligatory explicit or implicit component (The Higher Power), which bring out the existential issues of life, raison d’être, human values. The meaning of life is increasingly prominent in the philosophical and religious discourse of the Ukrainian sector of social networks. The idea of the meaning of life is presented on two levels: ideological and social. At the worldview level, ideas about the meaning of life are concentrated in the systemic principle: “Freedom is worth dying for”. At the social level, ideas about the meaning of life are concretised in the following concepts: socio-demographic, aesthetic, religious, hedonistic, hygge, success. The next most common issue is a subject of love understood by the Ukrainian audience of social networks as a system of traits: an active position with the other, value-based principles of a code of conduct, the meaning-making basis for self-realisation, recognising and acceptation the humanity of others, orientation on vital activity, goodwill, and unity, overcoming loneliness, a mode of self-determination. The subjects of time, different issues related to dying and death are ranked last. The tendency of philosophical and religious thinking has shaped the Ukrainian sector of social networks. It has the following special features: 1) view of the world and personal choice of life strategies is based on first-hand knowledge; 2) absence of abstract, unrealistic considerations; 3) strong link with a particular socio-cultural context; 4) focus on solving problems related to anthropological dimensions of philosophising: man as a unique being, the place of man in the world and his role in the processes of being, freedom and responsibility, time as a characteristic of human.

Influence of military identity on social adaptation of Ukrainian veterans

The article examines the influence of different forms of the military identity of veterans on the degree of their social adaptation. We define “military identity” as a result of the social identity of a service(wo)man with the military due to the internalization of values and norms adopted in the military sphere. A “veteran” is a service(wo)man who served in the army, participated in combat operations, and was demobilized in connection with the end of the term of service or for health reasons, regardless of the types of military forces and military service. We have used a sociological method of measuring the stable, situational, and unformed types of veterans’ military identity based on the following criteria: social identification, the strength of connection with the army, biographical importance of military service, perception of the army as a family, recognition of the individual in the army, existential assessment of military service, the importance of military practices after demobilization, social contacts with former service(wo)men, the positive assessment of the military culture of obedience/discipline. We have studied the influence of the following factors – duration of staying in the combat zone, conscription age, motivation to join the army, marital status, and traumatic combat experience – on the formation of military identity. According to the quota sample, the results of the study “Military identity and social adaptation of Ukrainian veterans” are presented; 400 veterans (n = 400) were interviewed according to the quota sample. We found out that veterans with a stable military identity mainly had a low level of social adaptability to the civilian life; veterans with a situational form of military identity mostly had a medium level of social adaptability; veterans with an unformed type of military identity were the most adapted to the civilian life.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of life of Ukrainians

The presented survey data reveals the impact of the pandemic in terms of public sentiments towards compulsory vaccination, perceptions of the prevalence of infection, the risk of a pandemic, the impact on the budgets of Ukrainian families and the public’s assessment of the Government’s efforts to overcome the pandemic.

Digest of U-Report surveys: 3rd quarter of 2021 (ecology and use of plastic bags; volunteering; conflicts in social media)

The paper presents the results of surveys of the innovative youth project U-Report for July – August 2021: the attitude of young people to environmental issues and the use of plastic bags, volunteering, conflicts and bullying in social media.

‘Health paradox’ and former Soviet Union immigrants: towards an integrated theoretical framework

This study examines the critical mechanisms explaining the health outcomes of such understudied social group as immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU), including Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, among other countries. Literature on the ‘health paradox’ suggests that immigrants from various countries enjoy better health than their native-born counterparts. Importantly, however, this trend does not seem to exist among FSU immigrants, especially those residing in the United States. In addition, while research studies find that socioeconomic status (SES) is the fundamental cause of health and illness among native-born individuals, higher SES does not appear to be the health-protective factor among the FSU group, likely due to their unique experiences and beliefs. Consequently, a new model is necessary to provide a more nuanced explanation of health outcomes of immigrants from FSU countries. Drawing on medical sociology and epidemiology literature, first, this paper outlines unique factors that explain health of FSU immigrants and argues that particular attention should be paid to acculturation, its sources, and the mechanisms through which it affects health. Specifically, differential levels of acculturation shape the degree to which FSU immigrants engage in risky behaviours, hold unique beliefs, access health care, and cope with stressors, which, in turn, influences their physical and mental health. Second, hypotheses are proposed based on the new model to be tested by future studies and third, unique interactive effects on health outcomes are discussed including such factors as SES, gender, country of origin, and other social structural factors. Overall, this paper contributes theoretically to medical sociology, epidemiology, social psychology, and global studies by outlining the novel model conceptualizing immigration and health relationships among one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in contemporary society.

Transformation of global insurance industry under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic

This article examines the transformation of the global insurance industry under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author examines the roles of regulators, governments, consumers of insurance services, insurance, and reinsurance companies in responding to the new challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic was an unexpected factor for the global insurance industry, and as because of the global crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, there was a need to assess the transformation of processes in it. Accordingly, the materials of experts of international insurance associations were analyzed, in particular: International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), The International Credit Insurance and Surety Association (ICISA), European Federation of Insurance Intermediaries (BIPAR), International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (IASIE) and others. The division of insurance market participants into two classes has been substantiated. In one class, there are consumers of insurance services and the insurance market regulators. In another class, there are insurance associations, insurance, and reinsurance companies. Based on the studies and reports of international insurance associations, the author revealed conflict escalation between insurance, reinsurance companies, governments (US, EU, China), and insurance market regulators due to the requirements of compliance with the principle of expediency and transparency in control and supervision, increased demands for reserves and quality assets, changes in the assessment of solvency, constant changes in regulations and requirements for additional information. From the considered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic given the existing regulatory documents Solvency II and IFRS-17, the problem of ambiguous formations in the regulatory acts in the paragraphs “Terms of the insurance contract” and “Exclusion of the insurance contract”– interpretation of the word: “material damage” and the difference in the words: “epidemic” and “pandemic”. Paper identifies the problems of these ambiguous formations in the normative-legal interpretation of the world regulatory bodies, the postulate of Solvency II and the lawsuits that caused these formations. The comparative analysis of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic was performed using the S&P 500 and S&P Insurance Select Industry indices. There was a shock due to the pandemic and the forecasted expectations of investors, who negatively assessed the insurance industry, and as a result, the price of the insurance industry index lost the connection of identical fluctuations with the S&P 500 and the price of the index fell relative to the S&P 500 index. The forecast has been developed to increase the demand for insurance, which will grow from the momentum of the world economy. After a reduction of 3,7% in 2020, the world economy is growing by 5,8% in 2021, which is significantly higher than the average of 3,0% over the previous decade. The paper illustrates the difference between economic growth in developing and developed countries. The author compares the recovery of the insurance industry after the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis in 2008: the insurance industry of the COVID-19 crisis is 14,35% growth and by the end of 2021 should exceed pre-crisis figures, the total amount of global insurance premiums accrued in 2021, will be 11,46% higher than the pre-crisis level of 2019. Conclusions and recommendations on the transformation processes that have arisen under the influence of the pandemic on the insurance industry has been substantiated.

Stock market dysfunctionality in Ukraine: factor of voucher privatisation

The author determines the peculiarities of privatisation processes in transformational economies compared with mature ones and considers the difference of the goal – to accelerate the development of the already existing stock market, and in fact, to create the market anew. Socio-economic transformations, privatisation of property and creation of market infrastructure are prerequisites but not a guarantee for the emergence of the domestic stock market as a specific institutional phenomenon, especially in the absence of adequate incentives for public equity. It is established that some local stock markets are degraded against the background of increasing size, globalisation, liquidity, and integration of world capital markets, including the Ukrainian one. It is stated that, unlike the neighbouring post-socialist states (firstly, Poland), the stock market has not been built in Ukraine as a basis for compelling attraction and allocation of capital. Paper substantiated that this is primarily a consequence of inefficient and protracted privatisation, mainly over-the-counter sale of shares, inconsistency of state and regulatory policy, optional iterations in the development of market infrastructure, the creation irrationality of privatised enterprises (even the smallest) exclusively in the form of open joint-stock companies, which die to their objective inability to raise public capital faced inadequate financial burden and coercion of listing on exchanges. The author identified the main problems of the Ukrainian stock market laid down during privatisation: excessively consolidated share capital structure, insecurity of minorities, meagre free-float and liquidity, conditional exchange pricing, the predominance of over-the-counter circulation of shares, etc. Emphasis is placed on the consequences of the attempt to implement the squeeze-out procedure in Ukraine. In the absence of market prices and the acquisition of control by dominant shareholders long before the legislative changes, the share buyback did not protect minorities. However, it led to significant investors’ losses, termination of circulation of shares of most issuers, even greater conditionality of indices, capitalisation and other indicators of market development. It is noted that the effectiveness of the announced state plans for the development of the stock market due to the privatisation of state property remains in doubt in the absence of prerequisites for balancing economic interests between market participants, the objectivity of pricing, incentives for public capital raising and effective institutional environment. It is concluded that in Ukraine, the focus on privatisation procedures in the stock market development has no prospects in the absence of adequate incentives for the public raising of capital.

Axiological space of coevals of independence of Ukraine: sociological dimensions

The paper offers an attempt of theoretical conceptualisation of coevals’ values of independence of Ukraine, as well as carries out the approbation of the put forward theoretical positions in empirical studies with the participation of authors. Coevals of independence are the oldest age cohort of the generation born in free Ukraine, and the central line-forming concept is the concept of “generational values”. The authors emphasised that in the multiparadigmality of modern sociology, it is methodologically expedient to develop several variants of “generational values” concepts following the main lines of sociological theorising, each of which provides appropriate empirical research methods. Paper considers four possible research schemes of these concepts in the framework of the “first”, “second”, “third” sociology (based on the works of G. Zborovsky and P. Sztompka), and a scheme based on the work of K. Mannheim is singled out. Semantic modelling of the “generational values” concept of using the axiological core of the “first” sociology (or neoclassical, objectivist) metaparadigm of sociological theorising with the appropriate method of quantitative empirical research. This allowed testing the theoretical provisions of this concept in the development of methods and empirical research with the authors’ participation and a comparative analysis of sociological information with databases of the World and European Values Surveys 2020 (particularly in Ukraine). The common and distinctive features of axiological spaces of respondents aged 29–30 in the global, European, and local context are determined, the specifics of the axiological system of the older age cohort (coevals) of the generation born in 1991–1992 are revealed to emphasise the peculiarities of the value spaces of Ukraine’s independence coevals, first of all, in relation to the ratio of materialist and postmaterialist values. The general conclusion is the recorded ambivalence of the axiological space of thirty-year-old respondents with barely noticeable shifts towards the older generations in the context of the prevailing trend of transition to post-materialist values.

Digest of U-Report surveys: 2nd quarter of 2021 (internships and employment, electronic democracy, social media and media literacy)

The paper presents the results of surveys of the innovative youth project U-Report for April – June 2021: internships and employment of young people, the use of e-democracy tools by young people, spending time on social media, media literacy.