Human capital and inequality: new managerial challenges for Russia’s regional economies

The digital transformation of economic systems significantly modifies the conditions of formation and use of human capital, which are the basis for the strengthening of social inequality and the emergence of its new form - digital inequality. The range of social inequality types, considered by researchers, does not take into account the fact that they emerged at different stages of civilization development, have different technological basis, and require differentiated management tools. The aim of the work is to reveal the dynamics of social inequality depending on the type of technological development of the economy and to identify preventive measures of managerial impact, implemented in the regions of the Russian Federation for its leveling in the conditions of digital transformation of economic systems. For realization of the aim set, we used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison, analogy, scientific abstraction), system approach, grouping method, institutional and statistical analysis. As a result of the study, we have identified the forms of social division of labor, which act as key criteria for the differentiation of society and socio-economic systems, as the main factors determining the emergence of different types of social inequality. We have established that the emerging intellectual inequality has an intersectional character, accumulating various forms of inequality, causing its strengthening and complicating character. We have confirmed this hypothesis on the example of Russia's regions developing on a different technological basis. The comparative analysis of strategic documents on digitalization of the Russian economy and socio-economic development of Russia's regions separately for agrarian, industrial and post-industrial regions has shown that the possibility of increasing social inequality and the formation of intellectual inequality are not considered as management challenges for public authorities. We pay attention to the need for reducing income inequality, digital inequality only in terms of ensuring equal access to the Internet. It seems that the approach that we proposed to the substantiation of the intersectional nature of intellectual inequality, in the future is the development of a methodology for its assessment and identification of possible development risks of, will allow determining a set of necessary preventive measures of management actions, providing the basis for technological innovation and the creation of new competitive advantages of regional economies in the digital transformation of economic systems.