Work in the System of Life Orientations of the Russian Population

7/30/2019 Work in the System of Life Orientations of the Russian Population

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6 SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Sociological Research, vol. 47, no. 2, MarchApril 2008, pp. 632. 2008 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN 1061-0154/2008 $9.50 + 0.00.DOI 10.2753/SOR1061-0154470201

L IUDMILA K HAKHULINA

Work in the System of Life Orientations of theRussian Population

Statement of the problem. The present article presents the resultsof a second comparative international study carried out in 2005 bythe Levada Center in the framework of the International Programof Comparative Research (ISSPInternational Social Science Pro-gram) and was devoted to the study of the populations assessmentsand opinions concerning different aspects of their work activity. 1 The method of the survey and the questionnaire that was developedby the ISSP methodology group was two-thirds a repeat of the ques-tions of the rst survey carried out in 1998. This made it possibleto analyze the character of the changes that had taken place overthat span of years in the respondents attitudes toward work.

The focus of the study was peoples attitudes toward work assuch, toward a specic job, and toward the organization in whichtheir work activity took place.

English translation 2008 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text 2006the Iurii Levada Analytical Center (Levada Center) and the Interdisciplinary Aca-demic Center of the Social Sciences (Intercenter) Trud v sisteme zhiznennykh


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Since we had data from the two surveys we wanted to obtainanswers to the following questions. What is represented by work inRussians present system of values, and have their assessments of the importance of work changed over the past seven years? Doeswork constitute a value in and of itself (as an area in which to ac-complish ones aspirations and make use of ones natural abilitiesand acquired knowledge), or, as the previous study showed, is work still, as before, looked upon chiey as a means of livelihood, whileall other aspects of worksuch as its content, importance in society,the opportunity to advance and achieve successplay substantiallysmaller roles in peoples motivation to work.

A second group of questions of interest to us concerned anychanges in the respondents attitudes toward the specic jobs inwhich they were employed: how satised are they with their jobs,to what extent does the work that they do satisfy the aspirations thatare formed by their overall attitudes in the sphere of work?

A third group of questions concerned the study of change in therespondents assessments of their place of work and the organiza-tion in which their work activity takes place, the extent to whichworkers are motivated to work in the specic organization, andhow they rate their chances in the labor market.

The responses to the questions that were asked are importantfor an understanding of the processes by which peoples systemof life orientations come into being and develop, responding to thechanged conditions of life, a system in which their orientations to-ward work occupy quite a signicant place. We are proceeding onthe supposition that the fundamental changes that have taken placein the labor market in the past ve to seven years have inuencedpeoples work behavior and their orientations toward work.

Specialists on problems of the labor market have singled out twomain stages of its emergence and development. 2

The rst stage, which extended over almost the entire period of the 1990s, was characterized by a drastic decline in employment andi i l d h h f ld d li i


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trative leave, doing various kinds of occasional work, experiencingdelayed payments and payments in kind, and under-the-table pay.For this reason, as the 1998 survey showed, the most highly valuedthing about a job at that time was that it was guaranteed, that is, therewas little apprehension that the job would be downsized. Next camethe amount of pay and its regularity. People were even motivated towork for low pay as long as they did not lose their jobs, because itwas not easy to nd another job. Many people were willing to work even more than they had to for the enterprises success because theyhoped this would allow them to keep their jobs and receive the kindof pay they had coming to them.

The second period involves the economic growth that beganin 1999 and has continued to the present, a period of growth thatchanged the labor market situation for the better.

By this time, the mass layoffs of manpower had ended and theeconomic growth that had begun raised the level of demand formanpower to the normal level of employment and reduced the levelof unemployment to 57 percent. Wages and salaries rose by anaverage 1020 percent every year. The sectoral and professionalstructures of the workforce changed. Workforce layoffs from indus-trial enterprises led to increased employment in the services sphere,in which up to 60 percent of all employed people are currentlyworking. This restructuring of the labor market made it necessaryfor a substantial proportion of workers to change professions andto acquire new knowledge and skills. That period was character-ized by a substantial rise in workforce mobility, and in regard tocadre turnover a large number of job terminations involved workerswho left an enterprise on their own initiative rather than becauseof downsizing at the initiative of the administration. Workforcemobility became one of the most effective ways by which peopleadapted to changing labor market conditions.

It is reasonable to assume that in a situation of increased de-mand for manpower, especially well-qualied manpower, and withbili l i i d h f k


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Characterization of the surveyed population. The structure of the surveyed population included: people working at a regular jobmade up 60 percent (versus 51 percent in 1998); the unemployedsegment stood at 40 percent, of which school students and collegestudents made up 6 percent, retired people (on account of age ordisability)23 percent, housewives4 percent, and unemployedor temporarily not working people6 percent.

The form of employment and professional and job status of the surveyed working population was distributed as follows (as apercentage of the number of respondents):

Group of respondent PercentageSelf-employed people,including entrepreneurs 4

Hired employeesManagers of enterprises and subunits 6

Specialists 25White-collar workers 14Military service personnel 3Blue-collar workers 49

The self-employed group is the smallest and most differentiated.The respondents who indicated this form of employment as theirmain job totals 4 percent among the working respondents, but another4 percent reported that their self-employment was in the form of asupplementary job. In terms of composition, this group includes bothentrepreneurs per se, such as owners of enterprises and rms, andpeople who are engaged in individual work activity that involvingtrade and providing different kinds of services, such as construction,repairs, tutoring, private hauling and transportation, and so on.

The group of military service personnel includes ofcers of the armed forces, personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, andmembers of the procuracy.

The group of specialists includes specialists of different pro-les who have a higher education but at the same time do not


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ers includes people engaged in qualied or unqualied physicallabor, including in the eld of agriculture as well as crew chiefsand foremen.

Among the surveyed population, 16 percent had a higher educa-tion; 24 percent had a general secondary education; 34 percent hada secondary specialized education; and 26 percent had an educationbelow the secondary level.

A large proportion of the employed people (53 percent) work atstate and municipal enterprises and organizations; 36 percent work at private companies, 7 percent in the nonstate, noncommercialsector, and 4 percent have their own business.

For the most part, the respondents work a full workweek of forty-one hours.

The place occupied by work in the overall structure of life and activity. It is possible to get an idea of the place occupied by work in Russians system of life and activity on the basis of data on theirsubjective assessments of the amount of time that they spend indifferent kinds of activity.

For example, if a person sees his work as an unpleasant neces-sity for a means of livelihood, it is quite likely that he will havethe subjective desire to spend less of his time working and devotemore of his time to other kinds of activity, such as taking care of household duties and spending leisure time with friends and fam-ily. If, however, work is viewed not only as a means of livelihoodbut also as a sphere in which to use ones knowledge, abilities, andopportunities for self-assertion, then a person will be more inclinedto spend a fair amount of time on it, sometimes even at the expenseof other aspects of his life.

In the course of the survey the respondents were asked a questionconcerning which activities they would like to devote more timeto and which ones they would prefer to devote less time to. The

distribution of their answers showed that no fundamental changeshad taken place in their preferences in the preceding seven years( T bl 1)


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e A s s e s s m e n

t s o

f A m o u n

t o

f T i m e

S p e n

t o n

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f A c t

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( % o f r e s p o n

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h t i m e w o u

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t o d e v o

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1 9 9 8

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r e t i m e

5 8

5 7

2 8

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9

6

5

2


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cent, while the share of those who would prefer to spend less timeon work rose from 16 percent to 26 percent. Does this mean thatpeople have started to take a more pragmatic attitude toward theirwork? Undoubtedly this is true to some extent, especially when weconsider that under todays conditions the sphere of leisure timehas become signicantly more varied than it was ten years ago, andthat there are many more opportunities to acquire new knowledge(which also takes free time). At the same time, subjectively, peopledid not express a desire to spend more time on these aspects of lifethan they had earlier. For this reason, peoples desire to reducethe amount of time spent on work is evidently also linked, amongother things, to the fact that because of rising wages and salaries itis possible to maintain their customary (or desired) way of life byworking less and refraining, for example, from doing work on theside. And even though the share of respondents who were holdingdown an additional job did not decline, remaining at the level of 1314 percent of all working respondents, nonetheless, apparently,subjectively, some workers would like to give it up if that weremade possible by earning higher pay in their main jobs.

There are observable differences between the different groups of workers in terms of their preferences. For example, understandably,young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four wouldlike to spend more of their time with friends and in leisure activi-ties. Older people (age forty and above) would like to spend moretime with their families (60 percent versus 50 percent on average).Specialists who have a higher education, as well as managers, havea similar structure of preferences: they would like to devote moretime to their families (6070 percent of the respondents versus 51percent on average for the entire sample) and have more free time(6971 percent among the respondents in this group) and get togetherwith friends more often. The entrepreneurs reported more often than

the other respondents that they would like to devote more time tohousehold concerns (49 percent versus 31 percent on average) andh i f ili (64 51 )


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more time to household and family concerns, to getting togetherwith friends and engaging in leisure activities, is based on the factthat subjectively these activities are felt to be more important thanwork activity. In addition, free time represents a space for self-development, for upgrading ones qualications and masteringnew skills, which is very important for young people and for thosewho have a higher education. For this reason, for these groups of the population free time is a value that is no less important thanwork.

The results make it reasonable to suggest that just as it was sevenyears ago, at present work is not a dominating value for most peoplecompared with other spheres of life such as family and family rela-tions, friendship ties, and free time.

At the same time, work still is a very important aspect of peopleslife and activity, since it provides them with a means of livelihood.In consideration of the characteristics of the economic situation inthe country in the 1990s, owing to rising unemployment and thedeclining standard of living of large portions of the population, anattitude toward work exclusively as a way to earn money becamedominant in the mass consciousness. At the same time, all otheraspects of work that might cause people to view it as a value in andof itself (the opportunity to put ones natural abilities to work andacquire knowledge, and to achieve success and status in society),tended to be relegated to secondary importance, although theydid not lose their signicance. It is quite likely, however, that theimprovement of the economic situation and the lessening of ten-sions in the labor market, as well as rising wages and salaries at thebeginning of the twenty-rst century, could lead to changes in themass consciousness wherein the value of work as such (regardlessof how much it pays) might increase. There can be no doubt thatin their pure form, an orientation toward work solely as a means

of livelihood and an orientation toward work as a value in and of itself, practically never go together in the natural world of society.W lki b d i l i l i d


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to work only as a source of means of livelihood and as a sphereof life and activity in which a person can nd self-realization. Thedata that obtained in the course of the 2005 survey show that nosubstantial changes took place in the respondents orientations since1998 (see Table 2).

At the same time, we nd a noticeable decline in the share of respondents who link self-realization specically with work activ-ity (i.e., they would be willing to work for the sake of the work itself), which corresponds to the data presented above concerningthe relative value of different kinds of activity in life. As before,half of the respondents among the working population look at theirwork solely as a way to earn money, while just slightly more than athird of them view work as an essential kind of activity, regardlessof how much it pays.

Compared with the 1990s, peoples attitudes toward work arebecoming more pragmatic. As we compare the data for 1998 and2005, we note that the share of respondents who would be willingto work even if they did not need the money turned out to be smallerthan the share of those who do not hold this viewalthough sevenyears ago the ratio was the reverse.

An attitude toward work as a value in and of itself is most likelyto be encountered among enterprise managers and specialists, whilethe purely pragmatic attitude tends to be found mostly among work-ers with low qualications; this was also found in earlier surveys,including during the Soviet era. The actual character of the work done by managers and specialists requires that their efforts includeuse of their creative abilities, accumulated knowledge, and acquiredexperience, and we thus nd fewer among them who view their work only as a way to earn money. It is quite likely that their dominatingorientation toward work as an opportunity to put their knowledge,skills, and creative abilities to work as well as their desire to be of

benet to other people enabled many specialists to continue workingin the sciences, education, health care, and culture even during the1990 h h d i d li i d l i


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x t e n t

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Peoples orientation to work more and earn more has declinedover the past few years. At the same time, the share of those whoare satised with the time they spend working and the money thatthey are paid for it has increased by a factor of 1.6; there can be nodoubt that these things reect positive shifts in peoples earnings.

However, the orientation work more and make more remainsdominant (see Table 3).

Workers of this orientation make up the majority among theworking population, and this is especially true of those of the mostactive working age, twenty-ve to thirty-nine; they are two timesmore likely to be found among the categories of workers who donot earn very much, such as white-collar employees who have nospecialty and blue-collar workers of low qualications. This latterfact is not surprising if we consider the composition of this groupof the workers who took part in the survey. Many are engaged intrade or in providing services of various kinds. For them, suchactivity is attractive, rst and foremost, because it provides themthe opportunity to make a decent income for their family and toquite a large extent this also depends, along with other factors, onthe amount of time that they spend at work. It is worthwhile tonote, at the same time, that compared with the 1990s, the view of

l b l i l f i h l b l

Table 3

Considering the Time That You Work in Your Main Job, and the MoneyThat You Are Paid There, Which Would You Prefer? (% of respondents)

1998 2005

To work more time and earn more money 69 55To work the same amount of time and earn the same

amount of money 18 29To work less time and earn less money 1 2Difcult to answer 12 14


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pragmatic attitude toward work solely as a way to earn money ischaracteristic of half of the working population. The other half of the population, on the other hand, tends to have a more complexattitude toward work, in regard to which particular aspects of it havedifferent meanings for different categories of workers.

The comparative importance of different aspects of work. Tounderstand the mechanism by which work orientations form underthe new economic conditions, the task was to determine whichaspects of work are important to workerswhat things they valuemost of all.

The data presented in Table 4 show that, just as was the caseseven years ago, the most important characteristics of work, as theworkers see it, are that they are able to earn good pay and have aguarantee of employment.

These results are completely expected. On the one hand, in theeyes of workers the pay that they earn represents an integral evalua-tion of the positions of such work activity and of the worker himself in the labor market and the results of his work. On the other hand,the high value placed on pay levels reects the rather low pay inmany enterprises and also that there are very signicant differences

Table 4

In Your Work, How Important Are These Things to You Personally . . .?(% of those responding very important and quite important)

1998 2005

A guarantee of keeping my job 82 87High pay 91 93Good opportunities for advancement 53 61Having an interesting job 73 82The opportunity to work independently 59 56The opportunity to do work that helps other people 60 63The opportunity to work for the benet of society 70 72The opportunity to allocate my work time as I see t 70 51


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their desire to have a stable job that enables them to be condentabout the future.

There was a noticeable increase in the role played by charac-teristics of the assessments of work, such as whether the work is interesting or not and good opportunities for advancement,and, at the same time, a decline in the importance attributed tocharacteristics such as the opportunity to manage my work timeas I see t. It seems evident that this latter consideration is linked,rst and foremost, to the fact that with increased employment ina main job and increased pay levels, the need to engage in occa-sional work on the side is becoming less urgent. There have beenno signicant changes in the assessments of aspects of work suchas the desire to be of benet to society and to provide help toother people. As before, these aspects of work are important tothe majority of workers (they were mentioned by 72 percent and63 percent, respectively).

In my opinion, the changes that have taken place in peoplesassessments of the importance of different aspects of their work are a reection of the fact that they are placing higher demands ontheir work, and that nonmaterial values in the sphere of work haverisen. What is important to workers these days is not just havinga job that pays well and provides condence that one will not beout of work tomorrow, but also what kind of work one does, andwhether the work will enable one to achieve professional success,make more money, and enhance prestige, and also whether the work is important to society. For the overwhelming majority of workerssurveyed, however, the level of pay and having a guaranteed jobrepresent the most important characteristics of their work.

At the same time, there are noticeable differences among groupsof workers when it comes to their evaluations of the importanceof different aspects of the work. For example, while, on average,

the importance that all workers attach to the ability to allocatetheir work time as they see t has declined, this has not been thef d l h h hi h


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twenty-four, 70 percent of people who have a higher education,and 72 percent of managers (versus 61 percent on average for allworkers). To 90 percent of the respondents who are self-employedand 81 percent of the managers, it is of huge importance to have theability to work independently, whereas for rank-and-le workerswho are hired employees, this circumstance, along with the op-portunity to manage my work time as I see t, turned out to bethe least important when compared with the others.

Satisfaction with the work and assessment of its different aspects. The recognition that particular aspects of work are importantreects, as it were, peoples aspirations and expectations in thesphere of their work activity. The extent to which these aspirationsare satised in regard to a particular job has a very important inu-ence on a persons level of satisfaction with work in general andhis specic job in particular.

It should be noted that we nd an improvement in the surveyparticipants assessments of their job in regard to all of its charac-teristics that they were asked about (see Table 5).

At the same time, as before, there is still a noticeable discrepancybetween the respondents aspirations and their actual assessmentsof their work in regard to the most important parameters. As wasto be expected, the most important gap (as before) involved theirassessments of their pay. While high earnings are acknowledgedas an essential characteristic of their work by almost all of therespondents, only 29 percent of them agreed that their work givesthem such pay. And although that gure rose by seven percentagepoints above the level of seven years earlier, the gap between what isdesired and what is actual remains quite substantial, despite steadyrises in wages and salaries over those years.

A major gap also persists in respondents assessments of theirchances for advancement. Only about a quarter of the respondents

stated that their jobs afford these opportunities (in 1998 the cor-responding gure was only 11 percent), even though two-thirdsf h k d h hi f h i k i


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of the respondents held this opinion of their work; however, 87percent of them believe that it is important to guarantee people the

jobs in which they are employed. And even though the gap betweenwhat is desired and what is actual did become slightly smallerduring those years, it is still quite substantial.

More than half of the workers surveyed (54 percent) say thattheir work is interesting (the gure in 1998 was 46 percent).However, 72 percent now, the same as seven years ago, say that itis important for their work to be interesting. And even though thediscrepancy does have a tendency to get smaller, it nonethelessremains quite appreciable.

Only in the respondents assessments of their work from thestandpoint of its importance to society, the opportunity to providehelp to other people, and the importance of these aspects of thework, do we nd almost no discrepancies.

The survey participants were also asked to rate their work fromthe standpoint of the physical and nervous load that it imposes(see Table 6)

Table 5

Do You Agree That Your Main Job . . . (% of those responding agreecompletely and mostly agree)

1998 2005

Guarantees that I will keep my job 51 62Provides high pay 22 29Affords good opportunities for advancement 11 24Is interesting 46 54Enables me to work independently 48 44Enables me to provide help to other people 49 57Is of benet to society 68 73Makes it possible to allocate my work timeas I see t 34 Gives me the opportunity to upgrade myqualications 49


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n D o Y o u . . . ?

( % o f r e s p o n

d e n t s )

A l w a y s o r

v e r y o f

t e n

F r o m

t i m e

t o t i m e

V e r y r a r e

l y

o r n e v e r

D i f c u

l t t o

a n s w e r

1 9 9 8

2 0 0 5

1 9 9 8

2 0 0 5

1 9 9 8

2 0 0 5

1 9 9 8

2 0 0 5

e f r o m w o r

k t i r e d o u

t

4 0

4 0

4 0

3 8

1 8

2 1

2

1

h e a v y p h y s

i c a l

l a b o r

2 7

2 8

2 3

1 9

4 7

5 1

3

2

e l f t e n s e a n

d s t r e s s e d o u

t a t w o r

k

3 2

4 4

3 5

2 7

3 1

2 7

2

2

r k i n d a n g e r o u s c o n d

i t i o n s

1 9

2 3

1 9

1 7

5 5

4 7

7

3


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from work tired out; 28 percent are engaged in heavy physical la-bor; and 23 percent are employed in dangerous conditions, whichgure is slightly higher than it was eight years ago.

The proportion of those who, by their own assessments, arealways or very often under tension and stress at their work increasedsubstantially. In 1998 this was mentioned by 32 percent of therespondents; in 2005 the gure was 44 percent. At the same time,relations at work between superiors and subordinates, and betweencolleagues, improved, according to the workers. For example, 75percent of the respondents rate their relations with other coworkersas good or very good, and 60 percent give the same rating torelations between the administration and the workers. Moreover,these assessments, compared with the earlier survey data, haveimproved markedly. Accordingly, it is reasonable to suggest thatstress on the job is linked more often to the content of the work itself, and its level of intensiveness, than to the psychological cli-mate in the collective.

A state of stress and severe nervous strain on the job was men-tioned most often by managers and specialists. Blue-collar workersand self-employed people reported engaging in heavy physical laborto a greater extent. Managers and blue-collar workers were morelikely to feel tired out after work. It seems evident that a feelingof being tired out can result not only from physical stress but alsofrom heightened nervous tension.

A quite important aspect of work involves the opportunity to useones acquired knowledge and accumulated experience. This char-acteristic is undoubtedly one of the factors inuencing a personsattitude toward his work as a value in and of itself.

At the same time, during the years of radical economic reform,many workers found themselves forced to change professions andtypes of employment in order to adapt to the changed labor mar-

ket conditions. Those who kept their profession found themselvesforced to work under fundamentally new conditions, and this couldh dl f il i h f h k i lf d d


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that they were able to make use of their knowledge and experienceacquired in previous work, whereas eight years earlier, more thanhalf (58 percent) thought that their past experience and knowledgeproved useful in their new work. At the same time, two-thirds of therespondents said that if they had to change jobs now, their presentknowledge and experience would be useful to them. These data showthat the majority of workers feel that they were able to adapt in thoseyears to the professional requirements of the labor market.

Peoples assessments of the various aspects of their work fromthe standpoint of their expectations and aspirations, their physicaland nervous loads, and opportunities to make use of their knowledgeand experience, constitute factors that determine their level of satis-faction with work. This level of satisfaction with the work turned outto be higher than might have been expected when we consider thesubstantial discrepancies between the greater requirements imposedon the work and peoples actual assessment of its most importantaspects. At the same time, the improvement in the respondentsassessments of almost all aspects of their work, evidently, couldhardly fail to result in their increased with the work.

Compared with the 1990s, the proportion of respondents whoare satised with their work increased somewhat. In 1998, forexample, 57 percent of the respondents were satised with their

jobs; in 2005 the gure was 63 percent. As before, 17 percent of the respondents are dissatised with their jobs. The remaining 20percent of the respondents are satised with their present jobs tosome extent, and dissatised to some extent (see Table 7).

Assessments of place of work and potential mobility. The surveydata show that compared with the 1990s, working for myself hasbecome more attractive. At present, about half of the respondents(47 percent) would like to work as hired employees, and almost thesame proportion (42 percent) would like to work for themselves

(versus 27 percent in 1998) (see Table 8).However, the share of self-employed people has hardly changedll d i h 1998 d l 8 9 i l di h


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Table 7

Speaking in General, to What Extent Are You Satised with YourPresent Job? (% of respondents)

1998 2005

Satised 39 40Mostly satised 18 23Neither satised nordissatised 26 20

Mostly dissatised 8 11Dissatised 8 6Difcult to answer 1 1

Table 8

If You Were Able to Choose, Which Would You Prefer . . .?(% of respondents)

1998 2005

To work as a hired employee 56 47To work for myself (engage inmy own business, provideprivate services) 27 42

To work in a small enterprise 41 47To work in a large enterprise 35 38To work in the private sector 22 31To work in a state enterprise orinstitution 59 58

To work full time (thirty hoursper week or more) 58 59To work less than full time 26 27Not to work at all 7 9

Among respondents who prefer to work for themselves, theshare of young people up to age twenty-four (68 percent) and men(58 ) i hi h h h Al ll f h d


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as a professional group that deliberately chose their type of oc-cupation, in contrast to self-employed people in the 1990s. At thattime, about half of them, according to their own assessments, gotinvolved in business because they had to, owing to unfavorablecircumstances such as loss of a job, failure to get paid, or pay thatwas too low. For this reason, they would have liked to return totheir previous jobs if circumstances were more favorable (if theirpay were raised, if the enterprise or organization would begin tooperate normally again). 3 In the years after that, evidently, someof them did return to work as hired employees, while those whostayed in business view their occupation as their preference. Thisfact provides evidence that they are quite highly motivated to engagein entrepreneurial activity and that they have a desire to retain thisstatus in the future as well.

And so, the desired place of work preferred by the majorityof the workers surveyed can be presented as follows. Working as ahired employee and working for myself are almost equally attrac-tive. But, as before, more workers would prefer to work in the statesector than in the private sector. It should be noted, however, thatcompared with the 1990s the private sectors attractiveness increased,especially among young people and those living in big cities wherethis sector has become very well developed. Many prefer to work in fairly small enterprises with up to 200 employees instead of inlarge enterprises, and prefer to work a full workweek rather than anincomplete one (see Table 8).

How do workers themselves rate their chances of nding thekind of work they would like?

According to the respondents subjective assessments, the labormarket situation has become less tense. One out of three respon-dents believes that it would be easy for him, or at least it would notbe very hard, to nd a suitable job. In 1998, only one out of ve

workers had that opinion.However, a substantial portion of the respondents still think thati ld b f h d i bl j b i i f h


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of their chances are found two times less often than the average.Self-employed people and managers are more self-condent.

They are two to three times more likely than specialists or blue-

collar workers to say that it would not be hard for them to nd suit-able work. Although unemployment went down compared with the1990s, respondents apprehensions that they could lose their jobshardly changed at all. About half the workers (48 percent) are afraidthat they might lose their jobs now; for about 30 percent, while theydo have such apprehensions, it is not to a very high degree; and 20percent of the workers surveyed have no fear at all of losing their

jobs. What would workers be willing to do in order to avoid being

out of work? Evidently, the less they are willing to sacrice theless tense the situation in the labor market is, as they see it.

The data show a high level of readiness to change professionsand specialties. For example, 75 percent of the respondents wouldbe willing to go through retraining in order not to end up being outof work. Slightly less than half (4044 percent) would be willingto be temporarily employed and to take a job far away from theirhomes (see Table 10). In our opinion, these data provide evidencethat most workers are inclined to exible behavior in the labormarket

Table 9

How Hard or Easy Would It Be for You to Find a Job That Was at LeastNo Worse Than Your Previous Job? (% of respondents)

1998 2005

Easy 4 12Neither easy nor hard 15 21Fairly hard 27 43Very hard 46 20Difcult to answer 8 4


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wages and salaries is already rather low for most workers, and,second, in their opinion, they would be able to nd a job that of-fered at least the same rate of pay.

For this reason, despite the prevalence of peoples pessimisticassessments of their chances in the labor market their potential

Table 10

To What Extent Could You Agree or Not Agree with the FollowingStatements? In Order to Avoid Being Unemployed, Would You BeWilling to Take a Job . . .? (% of respondents)

Would bewilling

Would beneither

willing norunwilling

Would beunwilling

Difcult toanswer

That required newskills and abilities 73 12 11 4

That paid less 22 14 61 3That involvedtemporary work 41 17 38 4

That would requiretraveling farther awayfrom home 44 18 35 3

Table 11

How Likely Is It That You Would Try to Find a Job in a DifferentEnterprise or Institution in the Next Twelve Months? (% ofrespondents)

1998 2005

Likely 30 25Not very likely 40 42Practically ruled out 24 29Difcult to answer 6 4


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If they had to, more than half the workers surveyed (55 percent)would change to a different job, and only one out of ve does notintend to do so (see Table 12). At the same time, however, only aquarter of the respondents would try to nd another place to work in the next twelve months (see Table 11).

Evidently, peoples potential mobility, as expressed in their verygeneral intention to change jobs, basically reects their dissatisfac-tion with certain aspects of their present work, dissatisfaction thatis based on the discrepancy between their ideas about what aspects

are important in their work, and the extent to which their actual jobscorrespond to these ideas. As we recall, these discrepancies werei i h j i f k d Th

Table 12

To What Extent Do You Agree or Disagree with the FollowingStatements? (% of respondents)

AgreeNeither agreenor disagree Disagree

1998 2005 1998 2005 1998 2005

For the success of theenterprise you wouldbe willing to workmore and harder 30 32 27 24 34 40

You are proud that youare working at yourenterprise 34 40 32 28 27 29

You would refuse totake another job offerfor higher pay in

order to remain atyour own enterprise 22 25 13 13 52 53If the opportunityarose you wouldexchange your jobfor a different one 48 55 15 17 28 21


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of the respondents would be willing to work more and harder toassure the success of the enterprise in which they are working; two-fths are proud that they are working at the particular enterprise;a quarter of the respondents would even be willing to turn downa different job offering more pay in order to continue working intheir present enterprise (see Table 12).

This group of workers, who make up slightly more than a third of the respondents, can be classied provisionally as highly motivatedworkers from the standpoint of working at a specic enterprise.That proportion hardly changed at all compared with the previoussurvey.

However, 40 percent of the respondents do not share a willing-ness to work more and harder for the sake of their organizationssuccess; 30 percent do not have a feeling of pride that they areworking at the particular enterprise; and if the chance arose, 55percent of the respondents would change jobs if they were offeredhigher pay elsewhere. This group of workers can be classiedprovisionally as weakly motivated workers from the standpoint of the enterprise (about half of the respondents belong to this group),and its proportion has increased slightly over the past few years.This makes it possible to suggest that peoples attitudes towardtheir jobs in a particular enterprise have become more pragmatic.Peoples sense of corporate solidarity, which was largely based onthe collectivism characteristic of enterprises in the Soviet era, isincreasingly giving way to individualistic motives: it is better towork where the pay is better and there are chances for advancementand success. Workers place a much higher value on their work assuch rather than on a specic enterprise.

Among highly motivated workers we are more likely to nd en-terprise managers and entrepreneurs, whereas among those who areweakly motivated we nd more white- and blue-collar workers.

Specialists are more likely to be found among those who areproud of their enterprises and willing to work more, but, to almosth ll h k h d h


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a different basis. The surveys have shown that the amount of payhas less inuence on a persons afliation with an enterprise thandoes the set of social benets that the worker receives there (e.g.,medical service, foreign language training, etc.). 4 For this reason,enterprises and rms that are implementing various social programsare doing so not only to attract qualied workers but also to instilla sense of corporate solidarity in their workers, an orientation notonly toward personal achievement but also toward the success of the whole enterprise.

The results of the latest survey have shown that for a substantialportion of the respondents, self-employment and entrepreneurshiphave become increasingly attractive. An orientation toward workingfor myself and working as a hired employee are almost equallyprevalent at present. In actuality, however, the proportion of self-employed people stands at only 8 percent or so, and this gurehas not increased in the past few years; this attests that peoplesdesire to engage in small and medium-size business are greatlyunderutilized.

The results of the present survey, like those of other surveyson the same topic, show that an ongoing process in the country isshaping work orientations that characterize a labor market underconditions of economic growth, although this process is not af-fecting all of the different categories of workers in equal measure.In our opinion, managers and some specialists, people who livein large cities, and young people are exhibiting more up-to-datepostmaterialistic work attitudes. Along with earning good payand having a reliable job, it is equally important to them to haveopportunities to advance and achieve success, to have work that isresponsible and interesting, as well as motives reecting the socialimportance of their work and the opportunity to provide help toother people. The people in this group are less afraid of losing their

jobs and they favorably rate to their chances of nding anotherequally suitable job.A l h lf l d i h l f k i


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ment of the work from the standpoint of its content, and the socialsignicance of the work and opportunities for advancement; whatis important are motives of achievement, as expressed in the termsuccess in ones activity.

As before, the majority of blue-collar workers, white-collar work-ers who do not have a special education, and people who live in smalltowns are afraid they might lose their jobs, and, moreover, they donot rate their chances of nding another suitable job very highly. Forthem, therefore, the especially important aspects of their work includeguarantees of employment and adequately high earnings, while thecontent of the work, professional growth, and the opportunity to al-locate their work time as they see t, are less important.

The results of the present survey have made it possible to shownew elements in peoples attitudes toward work, factors that arecharacteristic of the present stage of labor market formation in Rus-sia. However, the value of this survey specically, which was carriedout in the framework of an international program of comparativeresearch, is that it makes it possible to compare the Russian resultswith the results of studies in other countries. These are rst andforemost postcommunist countries that are also experiencing therise and development of new work relations; and, second, they arecountries with a developed market economy. But that is a subjectfor another article.

Notes

1. The empirical base of the survey consists of the survey data from a sampleset of the population consisting of 1,605 people. The sample is representative of the Russian population in terms of sex, age, education, and type of community.

2. For example, see V. Gimpel

son and R. Kapeliushnikov, eds., Nestandart-naia zaniatost

v rossiiskoi ekonomike [Nonstandard Employment in the RussianEconomy] (Moscow, 2006), pp. 2337.

3. Z. Kupriianova and L. Khakhulina, Predprinimatel

skaia deiatel

nost

kak

osnovnaia i dopolnitel

naia rabota [Entrepreneurial Activity as Main Job andSupplementary Job], Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: Ekonomicheskie isotsial

nye peremeny 1998 no 2 pp 22 29


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Documents

Work in the System of Life Orientations of the Russian Population