Self-employed citizens and social guarantees

The article is based on the results of the research work devoted to the study of the self-employed. The main source of empirical information is the all-Russian sociological survey of the employed population. The authors pay a special attention to the problems of citizens' involvement in self-employment, since the large-scale growth of this socio-economic phenomenon is usually accompanied by the secretive nature of their activities. Self-employed are often outside the legal field and, as a result, it limits their ability to claim social guarantees from the state. These studies show that the self-employed are less likely to rely on the state's assistance in providing social guarantees than employees and are less afraid of losing them. However, it seems that the mass exclusion of the self-employed from the state social security system, including the pension system, may later negatively affect their level of social security and, as a result, cause social tension.