EMPLOYMENT CHARACTERISTICS AND STATUS INCONSISTENCIES AMONG RUSSIAN WORKERS

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Abstract

This article based on data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) 2023 to examine how various employment arrangements relate to individuals’ positions within three models of social stratification: income-based hierarchy, composite status index, and self-assessed placement along the “poor-rich” continuum. The analysis confirms that informal employment remains consistently linked to lower status across all three dimensions. At the same time, other forms of employment reveal a more intricate picture. Workers engaged in self-employment or part-time jobs – despite typically occupying middle-tier positions in the objective stratification models – tend to assess their own status more pessimistically, suggesting a perceived sense of social and economic vulnerability. In contrast, individuals facing excessive workloads, though subject to heightened risks in terms of health and limited capacity for human capital accumulation, often report relatively high levels of subjective well-being, likely due to income-based compensation mechanisms that obscure their structural disadvantages. These findings highlight the non-linear and multidimensional nature of the relationship between employment and social positioning. They invite a reconsideration of how precariousness is defined and interpreted, and they resonate with V.L. Inozemtsev’s thesis regarding the transition toward a post-economic society. Taken together, the results call for a reassessment of the role of employment in the reproduction of social inequality in contemporary Russia.

About the authors

A. V Karavay

Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS

Email: karavayav@yandex.ru
Cand. Sci. (Social.), Senior Researcher Moscow, Russia

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