Rural life in Russia before and after the establishment of agroholdings: case-study in Belgorod region

Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 2016.

Efendiev A., Sorokin P. S.

The paper utilizes two panel surveys conducted in the 15 villages of Belgorod region in 2000 and 2013. We analyze the transformations in the rural life in the context of development of large vertically integrated agroholdings, which replaced all the former independent enterprises in these villages in 2000. We reveal improvement in the living conditions, decline in private agricultural entrepreneurship, negative changes in reproductive behavior, and the increase in achievement-based cultural orientations of the population. These findings put under question the dominating strategy for rural development in Russia aimed at agroholdings' promotion while overlooking alarming transformations in the rural communities

Keywords: Россия, Russia, агрохолдинги, agroholdings, private agricultural entrepreneurship, cultural orientations of rural population, living conditions of rural population, частное предпринимательство в аграрном секторе, культурные ориентации сельского населения, уровень жизни сельского населения

Publication based on the results of: ­­­The social organization of economic life in contemporary Russian society (2015)