Migrant workers in the CIS are vulnerable in terms of pension rights. The recipient country does not expect to care for them in old age, while the country of origin does not count the years worked abroad towards their retirement plan. Portable pensions may offer a solution, according to researchers of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (St. Petersburg) involved in the study Pension Mobility within the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS.
Sanctions and the decline of the ruble have caused inflation rates in Russia to exceed the Ministry of Economic Development's official projection and to hit a three-year maximum. Furter weakening of the ruble will lead to the continued growth of annual inflation, according to the HSE's New Comments on the State and Business.
Most Russians are confident that they only consume legally-produced spirits. The proportion of Russians who consciously purchase counterfeit or bootleg liquor remains relatively small. However, the percentage of those who are either unsure that their drink is the genuine article, or who don't care whether it's fake or genuine, is relatively high. This is what Senior Research Fellow at the HSE's Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology Zoya Kotelnikova found.
Russian society has a generally low level of trust. Colleagues and neighbours are the only exception – Russians regard them as trustworthy. A trusting attitude towards one's inner circle of acquaintances has a greater effect on life satisfaction than trust in public institutions and people in general, according to Anna Mironova, Research Intern of the HSE’s International Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Research.
Not all consumers want to buy things at a discount. Many people prefer expensive stores to discounters since the purchase price of a good can demonstrate that the buyer belongs to a particular social group or to a particular community of buyers, Elena Berdysheva, a Senior Research Fellow in HSE’s Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology, said in the paper ‘What Do We Know about Consumers’ Price Perception? Research Findings of Studies in Sociology and Marketing Science’.
Young Russians took the Sochi Olympics as a family holiday rather than a state one. Their parents’ nostalgic memories about the 1980 Olympic Games played their role, which were a personal and at the same time a national event for many Russians. Sochi 2014’s promotion as a national holiday worked worse, though. For young people, the excitement in official media was drowned by criticism of the Olympics on the internet, Anna Sanina, Associate Professor at the HSE St. Petersburg Department of State and Municipal Administration, and research assistants Anastasia Kozlova and Olesya Trigolos, found out.
Russia will face a budget deficit in 2015-2017; the country’s expenditure on defense and public administration will grow, while the spending on education, health care, and social services will be cut, according to expert analysis published in the recent issue of the HSE’s New Comments on the State and Business.
Implementing a sales tax will not help the regional budgets. The excessive tax burden will drive business into the ‘shadows’ and raise the price of goods and services. In addition, retailers will see turnover fall, reducing profits and investment activity. This forecast was included in ‘Macroeconomic Analysis of the Impact of Changes in the Tax Rate on the State Budget and Market Participants’ by the Director of HSE’s Centre of Development Institute Natalia Akindinova.
Federal and regional maternity benefits such as 'maternal capital', larger child allowances, and other measures introduced since 2007 to improve the country's demography have led to more births, but have not yet contributed to effective fertility rates in Russia. A paper bySergey Zakharov and Thomas Freyka in the HSE's new Demographic Review journal examines Russia's reproductive trends over the past half-century in an attempt to make projections concerning the future effects of the country's demographic policies.
After the Russian Unified State Exam (USE) was introduced, additional exam preparation did not lose its popularity. While there was previously a preference for tutors from the university a student had selected, now students are finding instructors ‘off the street’ to prepare them for the USE, Ilya Prakhov, Research Fellow in HSE’s International Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms (LIA), uncovered in his study, ‘The Dynamics of Investment and the Return on Additional Pre-entry Coaching’.
