SUMMARY
The article is devoted to the problem of the social sphere functioning of the areas in the Carpathian-Podillia region, in particular the emphasis is placed on the differ- entiation of the levels of its individual components, the dynamics of their changes and the complex analysis of functionality. The state of this sphere directly influences the economy and culture of the country and the region, and therefore the sectors of education, health care, culture, housing and communal services, etc. play a significant role in the economic development of the territory. Territorial boundaries of the research are defined within Transcarpathian, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil regions, among which there are established economic, labor-resource and informational-communicative connections, which also should be considered as the strong side of such cooperation. Several basic components of the social sphere (education, culture, medicine, housing and communal services, trade and mass catering, communication) were selected for studying the differentiation of the social sphere elements of the areas of the Carpathian-Podillia region, for each several criteria were chosen (in general over 20). All suggested criteria represent a qualitative component of functioning: in education. They are the amount of preschool institutions for children, the number of pupils / listeners / students per number of inhabitants. Medical sphere includes the providing the population with doctors, middle medical personnel, hospital beds, planned capacity of outpatient clinics. The sphere of culture deals with the provision of population with cultural institutions and their attendance. The housing and communal services sector embraces the level of equipped apartments and indicator of residential space. Retail and catering services cover the indicators of trade turnover for main groups of goods and providing a decent number of trade areas, the field of communication includes access to communication facilities for different variants of their activity. This allowed analysing the level of formation and functionality of the social sphere individual components of the region in general and in its individual areas. On this basis, the ranking of the areas of the Carpathian- Podillia region was carried out in terms of the social infrastructure elements formation. In addition, a comparative analysis of the social sphere development level to the indicators of the Western Ukrainian region and Ukrainian is provided. Official statistics from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, as well as regional statistical offices, were used for the survey.