International Conference “People Matter: Quality of Life and Wellbeing of Individuals, Families and Communities in Post-Transition Economies” organized by the Kyiv School of Economics and VoxUkraine on September 14-15, 2017 in Kyiv in Ukraine. It is supported by the Global Labor Organization (GLO).

This is the first conference in the region which will bring together researchers from around the world who have been studying population well-being and its various aspects in post-socialist countries during the transition period and beyond. It will provide an opportunity for extended dialogue among academic and policy researchers, government officials and policy makers to promote use of evidence and analytics in the decision making at all levels. In particular, the panel discussions will focus on such the wellbeing implications of such matters as youth labor market exclusion and forced migration, as well as health reform, pension reform and land reform in the context of Ukraine. The aim of the conference is three-fold: (i) to promote existing research on various aspects of population wellbeing, (ii) to facilitate the dialogue between researchers, policy makers and civil society, and (iii) to promote use of existing data and discuss possibilities for new data collection for the generation of evidence needed for policy making.

The organizing committee of the conference includes GLO Fellow Olena Nizalova (University of Kent), Yuri Gorodnichenko (University of California, Berkley), Tymofiy Mylovanov (Kyiv School of Economics and University of Pittsburgh), Mariya Aleksynska (ILO), and Olga Kupets (Kyiv School of Economics).

Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and President of GLO) will provide a keynote lecture on “Migration and Well-being” on September 14. He will also chair a policy panel on “Forced migration: Wellbeing of refugees and internally displaced people”. The full program of the conference will appear soon.

Ends;