Профессионалы в институциональных условиях России: методика выделения и специфика группы

Журнал институциональных исследований. 2023. Т. 15. № 1. С. 100–121.

Tikhonova N. E., Каравай А. В.

Under the conditions of the task of ensuring the technological sovereignty of the country, the importance
of the group of professionals ("professionals" or "specialists of the highest qualification level" as defined by
the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation) is growing. Correspondingly, the importance
of the information about dynamics, composition and specific features of this group in Russia is growing
as well. However, despite the employment statistics published by the Federal State Statistics Service
of the Russian Federation, scientific publications devoted to them, and the availability of The Russia
Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE), where professionals are
separately identified, the information that is currently available about them is insufficient, contradictory
and, in part, quite controversial. This is due in particular to methodological and methodical challenges
of their definition, the analysis of which, as well as the identification of ways to overcome them and the
characteristics of the institutional environment of Russian society that are seen in the course of such
analysis, is the subject of this article. It describes the main approaches to interpretation of the concept
of "professional" in the social sciences, some specific features of their classification in the ISCO-08 and
All-Russian Classification of Occupations, the main problems associated with the application of these
classifications in Russia considering the specifics of its institutional environment. A solution is proposed
that involves correcting the basic version of ISCO-08 in RLMS-HSE databases, used by most researchers
on the socio-professional structure. The advantages of such an adjusted version of ISCO-08 in research
on socio-professional structure in general and professionals in particular are demonstrated, as well as
how the share, composition and characteristic features of this group change when it is applied. The
multidirectional dynamics in the share of professionals when different versions of ISCO-08 are used is
demonstrated on the RLMS-HSE data from 2001–2021, and the conclusion is made about the specifics
of the institutional environment in Russia which strongly affects the situation of this professional group.

Keywords: социальная структура, специалисты, профессиональная структура, профессионалы, professionals, Общероссийский классификатор занятий, professional structure, специалисты высшего уровня квалификации, ISCO-08, All-Russian Classification of Occupations, ISCO-08