The Social Structure of Russian Society

Abstract

The article suggests that the effect of the latest economic crisis on employment and the human capital of the working population not only exercises a negative impact on incomes and social protection, but has also reduced the country’s competitiveness in the international arena. That is especially the case for those domains in which changing jobs requires long and complex organizational efforts, but that are of great importance for the development of a modern economy—production culture, labor motivation, quality of human capital, and so forth. At the same time, the foundations of the social contract between the government and society that developed in Russia during the 1990s are being eroded, including for the most skilled sectors of the Russian population, largely concentrated in Moscow.