Getting Paid: Wage Arrears and Stratification in Russia

Abstract

Wage arrears have played an important, yet unappreciated role in the stratification of contemporary Russian society. Delays in wage payments became rampant and persistent during the 1990s because of the particular structural, institutional, and policy context that accompanied Russia’s market reforms. Recent improvements in Russia’s economy have reduced but not eliminated wage arrears, an innovative practice that has become institutionalized in some, but not all, postsocialist societies. Analyses of survey data collected in early 1998 confirm the independent stratifying role of arrears. Inequality in getting paid is socially structured in a different manner than inequality in contracted wages, and the former proves equally or more decisive in shaping inequality in actual wages. Arrears occur with some regularity in other national and historical contexts. This study of Russia shows that, where arrears are rampant, researchers should incorporate them into conceptual and empirical models of earnings inequalit...