The aim of this elaboration is to identify the demographic situation and the economic activity of the population of rural communes in the Małopolska voivodeship and identifi cation of relations between their level of economic development and features which determine social aspect of their development. The choice of units for the research was based on multicriteria method of zero unitarization. The primary source of information were the statistical data for the years 2004–2011 published by the Local Data Bank and System of Analysis of Local Government. The conducted research demon strates the existence of statistical links between the level of economic development of local government units and the state and quality of their demographic determinants.