Publications

In the later decade Russia continued progress in terms of economic growth and lowering poverty. Yet Russia was much less successful in reducing inequality which skyrocketed after the market liberalization reforms in the early 1990s. Currently inequality in Russia has stabilized at the level which is significantly above the OECD average: the average Gini coefficient for the OECD countries in 2014 was 0.318, while it was 0.416 in Russia. Current macroeconomic environment with continuous recession, which started in 2014 and massive terms of trade shock due to collapse of oil prices, threatens to reverse Russia’s substantial achievements in terms of raising incomes of the population and reducing poverty. This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of income and wealth inequality in Russia and the impact of the current crisis. The focus throughout the chapter is on the national distribution of income and wealth. In market economies income and wealth serve as good predictors of well-being in other domains, such as social inclusion, education, health, etc.

The paper examines the capacity of further development of the targeted social support programs in Russia. The analysis shows the position of this income-tested social assistance in the federal and regional social support systems. On the basis of the revealed barriers to the income-tested programs three directions of changes necessary to their further promotion are suggested.  

This article is based on a case study conducted within the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) that examined the identity fragmentation of academic professionals in the context of current educational and academic reforms in Russia. Seven hundred and five professors were surveyed for the study, which focused on budgeting work time. The authors single out and describe eight groups of teachers using various structures for budgeting their working time: (1) teachers; (2) teachers engaged in research; (3) teachers engaged in administrative work; (4) researchers; (5) administrators; (6) teachers/researchers/administrators; (7) teachers/researchers; and (8) teachers/administrators. These groups were classified by comparing professional goals, evaluations of working conditions, the university's strategic goals, and attitudes toward publication policy.

The distributional impact of policy changes is usually considered in terms of equivalised household income, assuming that each individual within the household is being affected in the same way, as a result of complete income pooling. The aim of this paper is to extend this approach by introducing a gender perspective in the analysis of policy effects. We use EUROMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the EU, to estimate the effects of changes in tax-benefit policies over the period 2008-2014 separately for men and women. The paper consists of two parts. First, we apply the standard approach based on the equal income sharing assumption but focus on lone parent families – a specific household type which makes gendered policy effects easier to observe. This analysis is performed for 18 EU countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Finland and Sweden. Second, we estimate the policy effects for men and women in couples. To obtain gender specific effects, we redefine income at the individual level by allocating income components to each adult within the household according to a set of assumptions. We present three alternative scenarios of intra-household income sharing. All scenarios assume that all individual incomes (e.g. earnings, individual benefits) are retained by their recipients, while common incomes (e.g. family benefits, housing allowances) are distributed following three different sets of sharing rules, which are defined in relation to the primary and the secondary earner status. We compare the outcomes of men and women in these three scenarios and in the baseline which assumes equal income sharing. This analysis is performed for six countries which differ in terms of the degree of defamilialisation their welfare regimes provide: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Romania and Finland.

Does the business determine economic growth? What factors do provide the stable business development? Recent studies explore business environment as a key factor of prosperous business functioning. The subjective estimates of the business obstacles based on the firm-level World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) are aggregated on the country level. Using the country average values of 13 business obstacles 128 countries are classified into six clusters. Cross tables analysis and correlation analysis find that there is a correlation between the prevalence of the business obstacles and national income growth, export growth, high-technology export, expenditure on R&D. Considering regional differences the results show the priority of the business obstacles that could be used in policymaking.

This paper analyses programmes of cash allowances for children and compares their effectiveness in combating child poverty in Russia and four EU countries representing  alternative family policy models – Sweden, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Using microsimulation models, this paper estimates the potential gains if the Russian system were re-designed along the policy parameters of these countries and vice versa. The results confirm that the poverty impact of the program design is smaller than that of the level of spending. Other conditions being equal, the best outcomes for children are achieved by applying the mix of universal and means-tested child benefits, such as those employed by the UK and Belgium. At the same time, the Russian design of child allowances does not appear to be less effective in terms of its impact on child poverty when transferred to European countries in place of their current arrangements.

From 2007 to 2014 total fertility rate in Russia increased from 1.42 to 1.75. To what extent this growth is related to a package of family policy measures introduced in 2007? Although the maternity (family) capital program is the most well-known innovation of the 2007 reform, we argue that the new rules of monthly childcare allowance assignment is its another major component. Since all measures were introduced simultaneously, it is only possible to estimate their cumulative effect on subsequent fertility behavior. Using panel Russian Generations and Gender Survey data collected in 2004, 2007 and 2011 this study assesses how family policy changes introduced in 2007 were related to the fertility behavior in Russia in recent years. We find a statistically significant increase in the chances of having second and subsequent births in September 2007 to Summer 2011 in comparison with the period of Summer 2004 to September 2007. We interpret that as a cumulative effect of the 2007 policy changes. We acknowledge that the observed effects might be related only to the calendar shifts in fertility behavior and further data and studies are needed to make any conclusions about completed fertility of the cohorts affected by 2007 family policy measures.

The various approaches to income stratification can be divided into two broad categories – relative and absolute. Our study suggests that the most widely used thresholds of the absolute approach cannot be efficiently applied to contemporary Russian society, which has undergone fundamental changes over the last 15 years regarding income, as they fail to define the subgroups within the population.  Absolute models of stratification which define income groups based on a pre-determined income thresholds rank Russia in line with industrially advanced rather than developing countries, rendering the absolute income bounds, set for the latter group of countries, irrelevant.  The relative approach, based on the median income as the social standard of living, appears more effective for income stratification in Russia. Furthermore, it also implies possibilities for structural adjustments such as regional- and settlement-specific disparities in income distribution, which are relevant for Russia given its regional heterogeneity. The application of the relative approach in authors’ version shows that the income stratification model in Russia is quite stable even during the economic crisis. The results of the comparison between the Russian income stratification model and those of other countries confirm that Russia's income stratification model is currently more similar to those of developed rather than developing countries

This paper suggests a new and comprehensive approach to the assessment of the material well-being at the individual level by constructing a multidimensional index. Using this approach, material well-being is understood as a generic notion that covers a number of different domains, whereas the concept of domain is used to distinguish between different aspects of people’s resources, including income security, basic needs, durables, housing and subjective material well-being. Each dimension is measured independently, using the best indicators available, to generate a score or domain index for each aspect of material well-being. The procedure of re-weighting the indicators within the separate domains enables us to account for the disparity in resources and consumer preferences across different population subgroups. The final domain scores, combined with explicit weighting, are then used to generate a summary material well-being index. The domain indices and the summary material well-being index are validated by exploring their relationships to key socio-economic attributes, which were previously shown to be strongly associated with individual material well-being. The results showed that the summary indices of material well-being are characterized by greater differentiation in relation to such measures, as occupational class and judgments of satisfaction with one's life. This allows us to conclude that our summary indices capture the latent concept of material well-being better than any of our domain indices used separately. Although the index is constructed using the Russian Gender and Generation Survey data for 2007, the methodological approach that we applied can be easily replicated in other surveys which contain information on several aspects of material well-being.

From 2007 to 2014 total fertility rate in Russia increased from 1.42 to 1.75. To what extent this growth is related to a package of family policy measures introduced in 2007? Although the maternity (family) capital program is the most well-known innovation of the 2007 reform, we argue that the new rules of monthly childcare allowance assignment is its another major component. Since all measures were introduced simultaneously, it is only possible to estimate their cumulative effect on subsequent fertility behavior. Using panel Russian Generations and Gender Survey data collected in 2004, 2007 and 2011, this study assesses how family policy changes introduced in 2007 were related to the fertility behavior in Russia in recent years. Eventually we do not find any statistically significant increase in the chances of having second and subsequent births in 2007-2011 in comparison with the period of 2004-2007.  We also find that the policy changes might have influenced women differentially, and might have had significant influence on less educated  women and women from low income households. Unfortunately, the size of the GGS sample does not allow to capture it within this study. We acknowledge that the observed effects might be related only to the calendar shifts in fertility behavior and recuperation of fertility decline observed in 1990-s.

The article uses statistical data and all-Russian sociological surveys conducted in 2003–2013 to analyze changes in poverty in Russian society.1 It is shown that, on the one hand, the scope of poverty in Russia decreased before the ongoing economic crisis started in 2014; on the other hand, those who remained poor have become the base for the formation of a “new periphery” which is significantly different from the rest of the population. The “new periphery” formation zone in 2013 covered about 30% of the population, and this group consisted of the poor identified using both absolute and relative approaches to poverty that complement rather than duplicate each other in conditions of Russian social reality. Factors that account for becoming part of the “new periphery” are analyzed, the key one being the position on the labor market; its qualitative features are demonstrated, including living standards of its representatives, and the population’s perceptions of the causes of poverty are described.

Classic sociological approaches to the study of professions were conducted from a perspective typical for Anglo-American context while in Continental Europe and other contexts, occupational groups may not be the main actors in these processes. Professionalization here thus may be promoted ‘from above’ by the state, which plays the main role in the development of the professions (Siegrist 1990). But states also differ. As for socialist Russia, one must take into account the role of the ruling Communist Party. In fact, it was the single-party bureaucratic and at times autocratic state which provided the professions with additional ideological frames and functions. In order to study the professions in Russia, where the party-state had a much more central role in organization of social life than that of the government in capitalist or mixed economies (Jones 1991), one needs to consider the historical changes that occurred before, during and after the period of state socialism (Krause 1991: 5). This chapter will focus on the pre-socialist and state-socialist periods of the history of professions and professionalization in Russia. We begin with a short glance into the history of modernization reforms of 18th century to see the origins of the strong role of the state in the institutionalization of the professions. Then we consider the important changes occurred in the late nineteenth century, in the course of liberal reforms, which affected the transformation of social structure, opened the way for new occupations and expanded opportunities for professionalization. Then we describe the dynamic and complex re-mapping of professional structure within the society after the socialist revolution. We turn to a discussion on how the new understanding of profession was formed and revised throughout recent Soviet history. We conclude by outlining the main trends of professionalization processes in pre-socialist and socialist Russia as well as short brief of what changes has occurred in the post-Soviet state.

The central instruments of social policy include not only social programmes but also how social problems and social inequality are represented in the media. In this article, these representations are analysed, with a particular focus on the meanings attached to actors, events and phenomena in the field of social policy and how they are produced and diffused through society by means of language, symbols and images. The aim of the study is to provide an analysis of the representations of social inequality and social policy in one of modern Russia’s official state-run newspapers. The various means of explaining social inequality in the official print media will also be revealed and explained here. This is achieved through a content analysis of the articles in Rossiiskaya Gazeta [Russian Newspaper] from 2005 to 2012.

The country note  follows a standard format of the Review: details of different types of leave; the relationship between leave policy and early childhood education and care policy; recent policy developments; information on take-up of leave; recent publications and current research projects. Russia's note covers Maternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy.  

The study considers the relationship between internal migration and fertility in Russia. Authors use a sample of 28.2 million women born in 1950-1979 withdrawn from the Russian population Census-2010 database. The data shows that women who have continuously lived in their birthplace since birth have on average lower fertility compared to those who have a migration experience. The authors attribute this to the fact that in Russia internal migrants usually aim to escape from economically depressed areas, and positive effects of these changes overcome negative effects coming from the disruption of their childbearing careers. At that moves within the region have stronger positive impact on fertility than interregional ones, which confirms that migration and fertility are still competing life events. One major exception are migrants heading to the capital cities. Due to the need to adapt to the high competition in every sphere of economic life on the one hand and to the very low fertility norms in the destination region on the other hand they demonstrate lower eventual fertility than their non-migrant compatriots. Spatial analysis of fertility differences between migrant and non-migrant women revealed that regions that loose in fertility due to internal migration are few and they are clustered around the Caucasus Mountains and near the Altai. These are regions just entering the second demographic transition characterized by high fertility together with relatively low average age for motherhood. Overall, authors conclude that Russia benefits from internal migration in terms of eventual fertility.

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship of innovation potential and its main components with the level of small and medium-sized enterprises development in Russian regions. Based on international and Russian experience the regional innovation potential was evaluated using the multilevel approach. It includes the calculation of the partial sub-indices reflecting the innovation potential components in the regions (resources, infrastructure and effectiveness of innovation) as well as the composite index evaluation based on them. Principal components analysis of the variables characterizing small and medium-sized enterprises density in a region and these enterprises contribution to regional employment allows obtaining generalized characteristic of the level of small and medium-sized enterprises development. By the values of resource and effectiveness components of the innovation potential the typological groups of Russian regions were highlighted. The analysis reveals a significant moderate positive relationship between the level of small and medium-sized enterprises development (in particular, the groups of micro and small enterprises, medium-sized enterprises) and the composite index of innovative potential as well as sub-indices characterizing its components. For medium-sized enterprises this relationship with the resource and effectiveness components is higher because medium-sized enterprises are more involved in innovation activities. Currently, the contribution of small enterprises to innovative development of Russian regions is negligible, so the level of small entrepreneurship development depends mostly on regional infrastructure than on other aspects of innovation. Finally, practical recommendations were developed to stimulate entrepreneurial activity taking into account regional specificities.

The Routledge Companion to the Professions and Professionalism is a state-of-the-art reference work which maps out the current developments and debates around the sociology of the professions, and how they relate to management and organizations. Supported by an international contributor team specializing in the disciplines of organizational studies and sociology, the collection provides extensive coverage of this field of research. It brings together the core concepts and issues, and has chapters on all the key aspects of professions in both the public and private sectors, including issues of governance and regulation. The volume closes with a set of international case studies which provide valuable practical insights into the subject.