经济发展决定了社会福利水平的区域差异吗?

Does Economic Development Determine Regional Social Welfare Level?

社会福利水平是评价经济发展质量的重要标准。近年来,随着我国经济的快速发展,人民生活水平大大提高,但与此同时,各种社会问题也日渐凸显,经济发展与社会福利水平之间是否同步与协调成为需要关注的问题。广东经济总量长期位居全国前列,但区域发展不平衡问题突出,因此,选取广东省作为研究对象,通过构建社会福利评价指标体系,对广东省2011—2015年21个地级市的社会福利水平从纵向和横向两个方面进行测量比较,发现广东总体社会福利水平在不断上升,但存在明显的区域差异。进一步采用脱钩指数和面板数据模型对广东社会福利与经济发展的关系进行分析,发现广东多数地区的社会福利与经济发展脱钩,经济成果没能有效转化为民生福利。究其原因,除了经济因素对社会福利的区域差异产生显著影响以外,政治因素和区域因素也对社会福利的差异具有不同程度的作用。因此要推动社会福利与经济发展协调共进,应促进各领域和各区域社会福利均衡发展,并提高福利资源利用效率。

Social welfare is an important criterion for evaluating the quality of economic development. In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s economy, people’s living standards have been greatly improved, but at the same time, various social problems have become increasingly prominent. Issues regarding synchronization and coordination between economic development and social welfare should be concerned. Although Guangdong Province has been in the forefront of the country in terms of GDP for a long time, the problem of regional development imbalance is outstanding. This study selects Guangdong Province as the research object, through constructing the social welfare evaluation index system to measure and compare the social welfare levels of 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province between 2011 and 2015 vertically and horizontally. It is found that the overall social welfare level in Guangdong is rising, but there are obvious regional differences. The decoupling index and panel data model were used to further analyze the relationship between social welfare and economic development in Guangdong. The result shows that the social welfare and economic development in most areas of Guangdong were decoupled, and the economic growth could not be effectively converted into people’s welfare. The reason is that, besides the significant impact of economic factors, political factors and regional factors also significantly impact on regional social welfare level. Therefore, to promote the coordinated development of social welfare and economic development, we should promote the balanced development of social welfare in all fields and regions and improve the efficiency of the use of welfare resources.