New Assessment of Development Status among the People Living in Rural Areas: an Alternative Approach for Rural Vitality

In the process of development, the rural areas meet a wide range of economic, environmental and social challenges. This study theoretically discusses the concept of rural development and attempts to evaluate the development status among the people living in rural areas. In this scope, we propose the personal rural development index (PRDI), which is composed to, on one hand, an individual dimension and, on the other hand, a community one, related to different aspects of rural vitality. In this regard, three socio-economic components, namely economy, education – including a sub-dimension regarding culture, and health – with an environment sub-dimension were considered. These dimensions are influenced by the rural activities, especially the agricultural ones, that generates, nearby the economic results, as main objective for the individual or economic agent, also a set of economic, social or environmental externalities, from the category of public goods and of which both the stable and transitional residents of the area benefit. So, the complexity of the personal rural development index is high, aiming to put into light both individual and public components. The data used was obtained through a survey applied in seven rural communities from the North-East Region of Romania. JEL Codes - O15; I15; I25; D63