Russian Households Research Articles

Econometric Modeling of Electricity Consumption by Households as a Tool for the Calculating of the Social Consumption Norm

Since July 2016, it is planned to introduce electricity tariffs with the social consumption norm in all regions of Russia. The methodology for calculation the electricity social consumption norm for different types of households was legally adopted by resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation. According to these regulations, at least 70 % of the actual volume of electric power supply to the population should fall within the social norm. This article analyzes the validity of the methodology for calculating the social norm. The research is based on the data about the consumption of electricity by Russian households. The purpose of this study is to construct an econometric model of electricity consumption and calculate model- based social norms for different types of households. Explanatory variables in the model are the factors that describe the household size and accommodation conditions: the number of residents, the presence or absence of electric cooker, the type of settlement (urban or rural), the climate of the region where the household lives. The simulation results show that 70 % of electricity will be consumed within the social norms, if the size of the norm for households consisting of one person, will be from 110 to 210 kW·h, depending on the accommodation conditions. The author also evaluates the necessary social norm increments for the second, third and subsequent members of different household types. The developed model takes into account the regional characteristics of energy consumption and can be useful for calculating the social norm of electricity consumption in the regions of Russian Federation.

Regional and settlement aspects in the structure of nonfinancial wealth of Russian Households

The paper present results obtained from analysis of data about nonfinancial assets owned by or at the disposal of Russian households. The study was based on data from Integrated Monitoring of Living Conditions of the Russian Population (Rosstat, 2011), representing the general population and federal districts. Taking into account the content of the database, the nonfinancial wealth of households included the following assets: primary residence and other residential property, cars and other vehicles, garage, land plots, and business ownership or equity. The main asset of families in Russia is their housing (which on average is owned by 86% households in the country); the next most common asset is land (in ownership or use, 49% households); the third leading assets is cars (owned by 37% of households). Each asset was assigned points accounting for its characteristics, which enabled us to integrally assess the property assets held by each household and to identify six layers characterized by their holdings of nonfinancial assets. The layers are arranged from the group with the least wealth to the group with the largest: the lowest layer (13.6% of households), base layers with holdings lower (30.3%) and higher (28.1%) than the average, and the layer with moderately high (16.2%) and the highest (5.8% of all households) holdings of nonfinancial assets; there was also a separate stratum of households with no assets (6.1%).

Неравенство в доходах, производственная структура и макроэкономическая динамика (региональный подход к анализу российской экономики)

In this paper we try to assess the impact of recent macroeconomic fluctuations on Russian households income levels. We analyse the Russian trajectory in three different ways. First, we compare the evolution of the « middle class » in Russia with other (B)RIC and western countries, using the wealth-based definition of this group proposed in the Global Wealth Report (Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2015). Second, we go deeper into the Russian case in order to show how regional disparities regarding incomes distribution can be interpreted, considering the country’s recent macroeconomic trajectory. For this purpose, we build a productive typology of the Russian regions and study the link between each type and the level of income inequalities, using the varying structures in sources of household’s incomes as a possible explanation of regional variations. We conclude by an assessment of the remaining challenges for incomes policy in Russia.

Social differences in household structures in the 19th century: Moscow and its outskirts

During the last few decades, ideas about household structures in the territories lying east of the Hajnal line have changed considerably. Not only has the line itself been transformed into a fairly wide ‘transitional’ zone and its location on the European map been changed, but the variety of family forms found behind the generalised characteristics of the “Eastern” territories has made scholars re-examine certain theoretical concepts and findings.
 The new concepts are based on the growing number of micro-studies covering the territories of Central and Eastern Europe and provide very detailed information on family size and structures. For Russia, which has always been considered a model of the Eastern type of household organisation, new data have appeared as well, making it possible to re-examine the theories concerning Russian households.
 However, scholars more often pay attention to geographic rather than social stratification of household types. The majority of studies are devoted to the social group of peasants, especially of peasant serfs, while household structures in other social groups are less explored.
 In this article, we seek to fill this gap by providing a comparison of household structures in two social groups, namely of Moscow merchants and of serfs who lived near Moscow in the middle of the 19th century. The household structures in the two groups were entirely different: one in two merchant families was a nuclear one consisting of a couple with or without children, or a single parent with children, while in the peasant population multiple households, including several nuclear families, predominated (60% of the total number of households). The most likely explanation for this is the two groups’ different obligations to the state.

Social Recourses of the Population under Conditions of Losing Economic Stability

The loss of country’s socio-economic development stability puts on the agenda the problem of finding solutions contributing to the maintenance of Russian households’ welfare. The authors believe that these solutions lie in the broader area than applying various instruments of monetary support. The most effective solutions are related to the actualization of own resources of households that can act as a safety margin as well as a source of social development. The attempt to evaluate the households’ resource provision and highlight the significance of each resource enabling or creating barriers to the growth of households’ welfare is made in this article. On the basis of received conclusions social policy areas directed at preserving or enhancing the welfare are defined.

Savings Strategies of Russian Households from the Perspective of Retirement Provision

This paper investigates different saving strategies of Russian population such as bank deposits, deposits in precious metals and depersonalized metal accounts, investments in mutual funds and securities, investments in private pension funds and life insurance, investments in real estate. The overview of statistic data for the period of 2000th in context of general economic and social problems in Russia is given. Investment strategies are compared regarding their rates of return, safety and simplicity for the most part of population. For the first time we analyze the tax advantages of investment products corresponding to the Russian tax law.

Measuring changes in the Russian middle class between 1992 and 2008: a nonparametric distributional analysis

Since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Russia is generally acknowledged to be one of the most complicated countries in the world, from a sociological perspective. In particular, the evolution of the Russian middle class is an interesting but highly complex phenomenon. Most works dealing with this issue are based on summary statistics, which do not fully convey all the information on income distribution. In the present paper, we analyze the evolution of the middle class in Russia from 1992 to 2008, by applying a nonparametric tool, the “relative distribution,” to Russian household incomes. The relative density function is a proper density function which compares two distributions observed in different years, in order to describe patterns of differences on the entire income scale. Despite a stable pattern of high inequality, we found that after a period of income convergence characterized by a rise of the middle class, in 1998 Russian households income started to polarize and in 2008 one can observe a very high degree of polarization and a marked decrease in the middle class. This shrinking of the middle class affected particularly incomes below the median. Our results can be related to the social reforms and can be partially explained by the characteristics of the Russian labor market.

Особенности и проблемы сбережений как формы финансового поведения домохозяйств России и Китая

Особенности и проблемы сбережений как формы финансового поведения домохозяйств России и Китая

Регионально-поселенческие аспекты структуры нефинансового богатства российских домохозяйств

The article gives the results of the analysis of tangible assets owned by or at the disposal of Russian households, i.e. their non-financial wealth. The structure of ownership for each of the assets and the complex (non-monetary) assessment of how well households are provided with assets are considered separately for each federal district and inhabited locality with different population. The paper demonstrates regional and settlement discrepancies in the amount of property or non-financial wealth of Russian households. It has been found that the characteristics of the place where a household resides make a substantial contribution to the household's chances to have a certain level of non-financial wealth; but this contribution is significantly lower than one of the characteristics reflecting how strong and prolonged are the efforts of the household members to create wealth. It is revealed that differences in wealth are more closely related to the settlement aspects of the household’s place of residence than to the regional ones

Insurance for companies and households in Russia

Insurance for companies and households in Russia

Effects of Investments in Preparation Courses on the USE Scores

Despite the introduction of the Unified State Examination (the USE) as a new admission requirement, Russian households keep investing in preparation courses, while students spend their time on tutorials. To assess how time and money investments in preparation courses affect the USE scores, we systematized results of empirical studies on the issue, analyzed the main forms of preparation courses in Russia and built a model of learning strategies followed by applicants that allows to evaluate return on investment in extra training in terms of the growth of the final USE scores. It was established that in new institutional admission conditions students use the same conventional forms of preparation to exams as before, although they had been expected to resort less to extra training after unification of the examination system. We conducted a poll among first-year students and their parents, altogether including 1,600 households in the 16 largest cities of Russia. Estimation of the modified academic performance function revealed a positive relationship between investment of money and time in preparation courses, on the one part, and results of the exam, on the other part, although the return on such investment turned out to be rather low. On the one hand, it means that USE results come from efforts applied by candidates; on the other hand, it means that students who take preparation courses may win in terms of the final results, which may bring about inequality in access to higher education. In a number of cases, the effects of school and of academic performance are more powerful than those of preparation courses. The paper formulates topics for further research: comparison of return on investment to preparation courses for students in localities with essentially different markets and tutorial opportunities (cities and towns, satellite towns, villages), analysis of learning strategies followed by students with different motivation in their choice of university, i. e. willing to earn the minimum passing score or aspiring to get high scores in order to qualify for a top-ranked university.

More or better? Measuring quality versus quantity in food consumption

As people become richer they get the opportunity of consuming more but also qualitatively better goods. This holds for a basic commodity like food as well. We investigate food consumption in Russia, taking into account both expenditure and nutrition value in terms of calories. We analyze how food consumption patterns change with increasing income by estimating both “quantity Engel curves” and “quality Engel curves.” The former describe the functional dependence of calories consumed on total expenditure. The latter trace out the dependence of price per calorie as a proxy for quality on total expenditure. We compare income elasticities of quantity with income elasticities of quality. In these Russian data for years 2000-2002 the reaction of quality to changes in income is significantly stronger than the reaction of quantity to income changes suggesting that Russian households tend to choose higher quality food items as income rises.

‘Till Death Us Do Part’: spousal homicide in early modern Russia

The history of domestic violence, let alone domestic homicide, in Russia has yet to be written. This article focuses on the legal attitudes to domestic and especially marital homicide in early modern Russia and explores types of and methods used in spousal killings. The research is based on court records in addition to laws, legal documents and other sources. Its preliminary conclusions include assumptions about scale of domestic violence, gender of perpetrators and victims, main trends in domestic homicide and their connections with available explanatory frameworks. The study reveals that Russian households were violent places accounting for different types of assaults and homicides, but in all these acts women died more frequently than men. Marital homicide occurred in all social groups in Russia. Motives and methods for marital homicides were consistent with gendered theories of power relations. Penal policies also reveal harsher treatment of women than men, pointing to the gendered definitions of power disciplining methods.

Coping with the Social Costs of 'Transition': Everyday Life in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russian and Ukrainian households have experienced periods of economic marginalization. The role of this paper is to examine these social costs of transition, noting that official reporting underestimates the true scale of the problem, and the household responses to these costs.The discussions are based on both qualitative and quantitative research undertaken in numerous locations in Russia and Ukraine. One of the paper’s key arguments is that informal economic practices are crucial to many households and that a broad spectrum of coping tactics is employed.These tactics often reveal the unequal power relations that run through state – society and worker – employee relations and help detail the high levels of corruption that exist in post-Soviet societies. Furthermore, these tactics are entwined in the locations within which they take place and rely on high levels of social capital, ensuring that households would rather remain in their current location than migrate to cheaper regions.The paper concludes on a rather pessimistic note, arguing that, although Russian and Ukrainian households have ‘coped’ over the 20 years since the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the future poses new challenges.These include an ageing population, the increasing use of credit (default on which can lead to eviction) and the global recession, which leads to a decrease in opportunities in the informal sphere.

Country-of-Origin Effects on Russian Wine Consumers

In recent years, Russia has experienced significant economic growth. The wine industry is among those most affected by increases in disposable income. As a consequence, Russian wine importers have widened the range at the upper end of the quality spectrum. In the current scenario, some key questions arise concerning consumer attitudes toward wine and the way it is perceived in this evolving market. This article attempts to investigate such concerns through a choice experiment approach conducted by means of a questionnaire-based survey submitted to 388 Russian households located in the country's three largest cities (Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Novosibirsk). In the experiment, respondents were asked to choose their favorite wine among seven dry red wines. The stated choices are analyzed using a random utility model to obtain an estimation of the price effect through a triangular distribution. Our results indicate the presence of three distinct market segments in the Russian wine market: a segment with only high-quality, highly priced Italian and French wines, a medium-quality segment currently limited to Spanish wines, and a much lower quality segment of wines in which demand for alcohol is essentially satisfied.

Informal Loans in Russia: Credit Rationing or Borrower's Choice?

This paper examines the strategies of Russian households for choosing either the formal or informal banking sector as a source of credit. We aim to learn why households refuse to become clients of a bank and prefer to instead raise funds by borrowing from individuals – friends, colleagues, relatives, and other private parties. We use the results of “Monitoring the Financial Behavior of the Population” (2009-2010), a national survey of Russian households. Our results suggest that a household’s choice of the informal credit market is based not only on economic factors, but also on some institutional ones, including financial literacy, trust in the banking sector, and credit discipline. We show that choosing the informal market is explained by a lack of financial literacy, measured by mathematical competence and home accounting, as well as by a lack of trust in the banking sector as a whole. Borrowers from private parties demonstrate a higher degree of credit discipline: those who believe that repaying a loan is not obligatory are less frequently among informal borrowers and they choose the bank credit market. Our findings, however, are still in line with credit rationing theory. We show that better financial conditions reduce a household’s probability to use both formal and informal credit markets in favor of pure bank borrowing.

Предикторы инновационных потребительских практик: освоение интернет-шопинга в российских домохозяйствах

Несмотря на то, что потребление является предметом исследований как в экономике, так и в социологии, две эти дисциплины изучают его по-разному. При изучении потребления в рамках экономики наблюдается редукция потребления к трансакциям обмена товаров и услуг на рынке, а в социологии доминируют теории, акцентирующие внимание на рассмотрении либо символического смысла предметов потребления, либо моральных суждений о консьюмеризме. Автор представляемой работы пытается разработать более сбалансированный подход к рассмотрению потребления, дополнив теоретическую базу новой экономической социологии инструментарием диффузии инноваций для последующего его применения к исследованию новых потребительских практик в повседневной жизни. Дабы избежать крайностей моделей homo economicus и homo sociologicus в изучении потребления, автор также использует теорию практик в качестве концептуальной рамки. Цель данной работы - выявление предикторов освоения инновационных потребительских практик на примере интернет-шопинга. Гипотезы были протестированы на данных общенациональной репрезентативной выборки обследования домохозяйств и индивидов «Российский мониторинг экономического положения и здоровья населения» (РМЭЗ) НИУ ВШЭ, собранных в 2009 г. Отрицательный биномиальный регрессионный анализ позволил определить положительную связь с вовлечённостью в интернет-шопинг следующих предикторов: социальный капитал, манифестируемый образовательной и профессиональной мобильностью; вовлечённость в практики, развивающие когнитивные способности; материальные и нематериальные ресурсы домохозяйства; проживание в столичных городах. При моделировании на общенациональных данных и данных разных доходных групп набор статистически значимых предикторов не всегда совпадал: образовательная мобильность положительно связана с вовлечённостью в интернет-шопинг только среди представителей высокодоходных домохозяйств, а наличие свободного времени - среди представителей средне- и низкодоходных домохозяйств соответственно. В заключении работы автор делает предположение о том, что при изучении стиля жизни социально-демографические характеристики становятся менее актуальными по сравнению с элементами жизненных траекторий и сопряжёнными практиками индивида.

Technology and Pro-Environmental Behavior in Urban Households: How Technologies Mediate Domestic Routines

This paper investigates environmental behavior in Russian households by the analysis of 24 in-depth interviews conducted in typical households of the city of Moscow. Using the STS tools such as ‘script’ and ‘moral agency’ it discovers how technologies shape domestic routines and pro-environmental behavior of their users and how the users shape the resource consumption of technological artifacts. Depending on their environmental values and believes three types of residents are identified: committed environmentalists, occasional environmentalists and non-environmentalists. Each of the group of people appeared to have different agencies in relation to their domestic technologies. Technologies also seem to play different role in shaping moral actions of the three categories of residents.

How do obese people afford to be obese? Consumption strategies of Russian households

This article investigates the extent to which Russian households that differ in their members’ weight status adjust their food consumption differently when their economic resources change. Using household-panel data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1995 to 2005, we estimate total expenditure elasticities of food expenditures, food quantities, and food quality for normal-weight, overweight, and obese households, respectively. The expenditure elasticities of quality derived for obese households for meat, bread, fruits, and dairy were found to be 15–20% higher than those of normal households. Hence, a change in economic resources causes obese households to adjust the quality of purchased foods significantly more flexibly than normal-weight households. Only few differences were found for quantity and expenditure reactions. Our results emphasize that policies aiming to reduce obesity should consider deviations in consumption behavior of normal and obese consumers in terms of quality.

Inequality of Wellbeing: A Multidimensional Approach

An important aspect of multidimensional wellbeing distributions is the correlation between different dimensions. We propose two indices for measuring multidimensional inequality, derived from two underlying social evaluation functions. These functions aggregate both across dimensions and across individuals. The social evaluation functions differ only with respect to the sequencing of aggregation. Aggregating first across dimensions is more attractive since it allows the inequality index to depend on the correlation between dimensions. We illustrate both indices, and the impact of correlation sensitivity, using Russian household data between 1995 and 2005 for four dimensions of wellbeing: expenditure, health, schooling and housing quality.