Article
Бедность и благосостояние российских семей с детьми на разных этапах экономического цикла
The analysis of competition policy during economic crisis is motivated by the fact that competition is a key factor in productivity levels. The latter, in turn, influences the scope and length of economic recession. In many Russian markets, buyers’ gains decline because of weak competition, since suppliers are reluctant to cut prices despite decreasing demand. Data on prices in Russia and abroad in the second half of 2008 show asymmetric price rigidity. At least two questions are important in an economic crisis: the “division of labor” between proactive and protective tools of competition policy and the impact of anticrisis policy on competition. Protective competition policy is insufficient in a transition economy, especially during a crisis, and it should be supplemented with well-designed industrial policy measures that do not contradict the goals of competition. The preferred tools of anticrisis policy are those that do not restrain competition.
This paper puts forth a comprehensive set of measures to address the current economic crisis, prevent its further aggravation and ensure sustained and ongoing development of the Russian economy. In this study we seek to adopt the viewpoint of common sense and keep free from political and ideological bias. This is why we believe the proposed solutions should be implemented by any reasonable government irrespective of its political coloration. This text presents our vision of the Russian economy and its problems.
On the basis of in-depth case studies of four Russian regions, Kirov and Voronezh oblasts and Krasnoyarsk and Perm' krais, the trade-offs among social and economic policy at the regional level in Russia are examined. All four regional governments seek to develop entrepreneurship while preserving social welfare obligations and improving compensation in the public sector. Richer regions have a greater ability to reconcile social commitments with the promotion of business. Regions differ in their development strategies, some placing greater emphasis on indigenous business development and others seeking to attract federal or foreign investment. Governors have considerable discretion in choosing their strategy so long as they meet basic performance demands set by the federal government such as ensuring good results for the United Russia party. In all four regions, governments consult actively with local business associations whereas organized labor is weak. However, the absence of effective institutions to enforce commitments undertaken by government and its social partners undermines regional capacity to use social policy as a basis for long-term economic development.
In the article we study the reasons and character of economic growth in Russia in the beginning of the XXI-st century. The analysis of the features of economic development is a key to understanding of depth of modern crisis in Russia. This article exhibits institutional preconditions for an overcoming the crisis and acceleration of economic growth.
In this chapter we aim to examine the discourses created and reproduced through the interaction between single mothers and representatives of social services. The analysis is based on twenty-six interviews with single mothers and six interviews with social workers conducted in 2001–2003, and six interviews with single mothers and three with social workers conducted in 2006 in the Saratov region in Russia, as well as official documents and the publications of other researchers. In our interviews with mothers, we focused on the issues of familial well-being and interactions with social services, while social workers were asked to discuss their experiences with clients. A short overview of statistics and social policy terminology prefaces a discussion of how mother-headed families and state social policy interrelate and affect each other. The subsequent sections contain analysis of the interviews with single mothers who, as the heads of low-income households, interact with the social service system. The analysis demonstrates that single mothers are frustrated by inadequate assistance and the impossibility of improving their life situations. The discussion goes on to show that social workers, who are used to interpreting complex issues in the life situations of single mothers as individual psychological peculiarities, tend to blame the victim, thus ignoring important social conditions and imposing on women a responsibility for problems that are societal in origin.
Economic crisis started in 2008 forced companies in Russia to move from growth and expansion to reduction and restructuring. The article presents the main changes at top managers’ labor market from the beginning of crisis in Russia. The original data on top managers’ mobility in Russia from late 1999 till 2009 was used. The main result of the research is that there were no big changes in Russian top managers’ labor market during the crisis years (2008–2009). The most significant change was the increase of firm’s demand for specific human capital of top managers and the decrease of demand for general human capital.
This volume intends to fill the gap in the range of publications about the post-transition social housing policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe by delivering critical evaluations about the past two decades of developments in selected countries’ social housing sectors, and showing what conditions have decisively impacted these processes.
Contributors depict the different paths the countries have taken by reviewing the policy changes, the conditions institutions work within, and the solutions that were selected to answer the housing needs of vulnerable households. They discuss whether the differences among the countries have emerged due to the time lag caused by belated reforms in selected countries, or whether any of the disparities can be attributed to differences inherited from Soviet times. Since some of the countries have recently become member states of the European Union, the volume also explores whether there were any convergence trends in the policy approaches to social housing that can be attributed to the general changes brought about by the EU accession.
Several approaches to the concept of fatherhood present in Western sociological tradition are analyzed and compared: biological determinism, social constructivism and biosocial theory. The problematics of fatherhood and men’s parental practices is marginalized in modern Russian social research devoted to family and this fact makes the traditional inequality in family relations, when the father’s role is considered secondary compared to that of mother, even stronger. However, in Western critical men’s studies several stages can be outlined: the development of “sex roles” paradigm (biological determinism), the emergence of the hegemonic masculinity concept, inter-disciplinary stage (biosocial theory). According to the approach of biological determinism, the role of a father is that of the patriarch, he continues the family line and serves as a model for his ascendants. Social constructivism looks into man’s functions in the family from the point of view of masculine pressure and establishing hegemony over a woman and children. Biosocial theory aims to unite the biological determinacy of fatherhood with social, cultural and personal context. It is shown that these approaches are directly connected with the level of the society development, marriage and family perceptions, the level of egality of gender order.