ANALYSIS OF CONVERGENCE PROCESS OF LEVEL OF LIVING IN POLAND

The research discussed in the article concerned the level of living in Poland. The hypothesis of social convergence, understood as the process of assimilation (equalizing) of standard of living in the Polish provinces was verified. In contrast to earlier approach based on only one indicator, authors decided to construct a synthetic variable, reflecting different aspects of living. Two sets of diagnostic variables were considered. The first one described basic needs in the form of the indicator “share of household expenditure on food in total expenditure”, while in the second set, this group of needs has been omitted. To make analysis the most comprehensive, three different structures of synthetic variables were considered – measures of development by M. Cieslak, B. Strahl and W. Pluta. The changes of spatial differentiation of these measures and various types of convergence were studied. For both sets of variables and all considered measures the most common type of social convergence – beta type convergence was verified. Also the regions, which have a positive or negative impact on the speed of the process were indicated. Other types of convergence were not found. The main hypothesis of the study about assimilation of the average level of living in Poland was not unequivocally confirmed. However, the actual results of β-convergence seem to indicate that the processes of levelling the average standard of living between regions occur. Perhaps a period of study is too short for their verification on the basis of convergence sigma and gamma types.