Alexey Bessudnov’s research while affiliated with National Research University Higher School of Economics and other places

Russia's market reforms in the early 1990s led to marked social inequalities. We analysed inequalities in risks of dying for Russian men by occupational class and perceived social status in the post-transition era. Cox proportional analysis of the hazard of dying by occupational class, education, household income and perceived social status was performed for 593 deaths that occurred between 1994 and 2006 using a representative sample of Russia's male population (n = 6586 people, 40 046 person-years). Occupational class was coded based on the European Socio-Economic Classification; social status was based on survey questionnaires about people's perceived economic, power and respect status. Manual occupational class is significantly associated with greater hazards of dying among men, after adjusting for age, education and other potential confounding variables. Groups at highest risk were men who were manual workers, manual supervisors and technicians, and lower sales and service workers. Substantial gaps in life expectancy at age 21 of up to 10 years were observed between male managers and professionals and manual workers. Substantial inequalities in risks of dying exist by both occupational class and perceived status in Russia, with patterns by class differing from those in the west.

In this paper I construct an occupational status scale for post- Soviet Russia using data from the ISSP for 1992-2006 and Goodman's RC type II model. The resulting scale is similar to the scales previously constructed for Western countries. The status scales for Russia and the United States were formally compared, with only minor differences found. In both countries non-manual occupations rank higher than manual, and professionals rank higher than managers. The scale for Russia is well correlated with education, subjective social class and self-placement on the scale of perceived social hierarchy, as well as with international occupational scales, in particular the ISEI. The scale can be used in further empirical research of social inequality in Russia.

In this paper I construct a social status scale for post-Soviet Russia, using the relational occupational scales approach. The Russia n scale shows a high degree of consistency with status scales in other countrie s. As in other countries, social status in Russia is closer related to education tha n to income. In post-Soviet Russia, compared to other countries, the relationsh ip between status and education is quite strong, while the relationship b etween status and income is remarkably weak. Subjective social class is well co rrelated with social status, especially at the group level. The social status sc ale for Russia did not exist before and may be used in other research on social stratification. In this paper I deal with the notion of social stat us, its empirical measurement and application for Russia. I start with a discussi on of the definition of status, then move on to a review of the empirical research on oc cupational status and prestige. Then I elaborate on occupational status in Soviet a nd post-Soviet Russia and hypothesize possible differences in the status hier archy between Russia and other countries, where empirical studies of social status have already been conducted. After that I describe the data and method, present the re sults of the empirical research and conclude with their discussion.