Kolennikova N.D. Occupational structure in Great Russia and Little Russia: Outline, dynamics, and peculiarities. Terra Economicus. 2023. Vol. 21. No. 3. P. 88–101.

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://te.sfedu.ru/evjur/data/2023/3/kolennikova.pdf (дата обращения 06.10.2023)

Abstract

Over the last two decades, occupational structure across urban and rural population in Russian demonstrates significant change, resulting partly from deindustrialization in employment, increase in service sector employment, and professional deskilling. In Great Russia (Russia’s largest cities), the growth in the number of managers and professionals slowed down, while the share of semi-professionals increased significantly. Smaller towns and countryside Russia, with relatively low pace of upgrading in occupational structure, are losing skilled workers, whereas the group of semi-professionals gradually grows in size. These trends smooth differentiation between various types of residence in terms of the ratio between the number of employees across local occupational groups. The specifics of employees’ position are quite pronounced at that. Across urban and countryside population, the incomes of different occupational groups appear to have somewhat leveled out over the last two decades. The reverse side of this process is the relative depreciation of labor of highly skilled persons. Additional disproportions result from the widespread practice of overworking, which is especially unfavorable in Little Russia, being aggravated by low income and population aging. Ongoing change indicates a range of internal imbalances in occupational structure in urban and rural areas, as well as systemic barriers to particular groups of employees in the Russian labor market. At times of economic crises, such a situation challenges the transition toward a new type of employee both in Great and in Little Russia.