Social development. Рубрика в журнале - Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast
About middle class theory: history and modern times
Статья научная
The article analyses the problem of the middle class that had been denoted in the works of Aristotle as far back as in ancient society and that was of interest to social thinkers during the Renaissance and Modern Age periods. At present this issue has been actively discussed both in foreign and in the Russian press. The authors of the article show the reasons for frequent contradictions between the assessments concerning the size of the middle class in Russian society (including the Vologda Oblast) and the prospect for the increase in the share of middle stratum.
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About the “learning organizations” and corporate education in the context of innovation
Статья научная
The current state-financed system of continuing professional education is often unable to catch up with the real needs of production and labor market in advanced training and professional retraining of staff. Corporate (internal) education is being developed as an alternative. It competes successfully with state educational systems, since it has a specific purpose - to train an employee for productive work specifically in his/her organization and for its benefit. Companies that are developing internal continuing education become “learning organizations” and gain obvious competitive advantages.
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Accessibility and quality of medical service in the context of health care modernization
Статья научная
Assessment of access to health care is a complicated scientific and practical problem. The solution can not be limited to formal indicators of state and departmental statistics. Existing solely for the purpose to preserve the citizens’ health, the health care system must be based and reconstructed on the opinion of its customers, the territory’s residents who receive medical services under the state guarantees program. That is why, the necessary, if not the most important, component to assess the health care access is sociological data analysis. The Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of the Russian Academy of Sciences has carried out the measurement and analysis of the Vologda Oblast population’s estimates of the access to medical services and its quality, provided by regional health institutions. This study is especially important because a number of reforms and the Program of Health Care Modernization have been implemented in the Russian health care over the last years. The authors have found out that the reforms improved the provision of the medical institutions with equipment, but the problem of staff shortage was not solved. What is more, the region’s residents are still concerned about ethics violations, medical workers’ rude behavior and difficulty to make an appointment at the doctor’s. These problems remain acute.
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Acute issues of Russia's socio-cultural modernization
Статья научная
The need of socio-economic modernization is one of the main challenges of the 21st century facing the government, business and population of many countries. The solution to modernization tasks is unique for each country and is stipulated by a particular situation. Of special importance for Russia is the issue concerning the gap between population living standards in different, sometimes neighbouring, regions and, an overall significant lag in the living conditions of Russians compared with the inhabitants of developed countries. A necessary condition for successful modernization policy is the elaboration of specific national modernization strategies, considering the specifics of socio-cultural development of not only the whole Russia, but of each region.
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Analysis of migration flows of the population of the Vologda oblast districts
Статья научная
The article presents the research on the main directions and scale of migration in municipal districts of the Vologda Oblast and considers the main types of migration and the specifics of their statistical accounting. The data by Rosstat served as a basis upon which a general analysis of migration dynamics in the Vologda Oblast districts was carried out; and the article presents its periodization. Three main periods are defined: the “migration shock” of 1991-1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the migration stability of 2000-2008 and the post-crisis rural out-migration that began in 2009 and is increasing year by year. At the same time, gross migration indicators have shown high sensitivity to significant socio-economic change, in particular, to the economic crises of 1999 and 2008. The article describes the main age and gender characteristics of migrants, it has been determined that the most active migrants are girls aged 15-29, who move from rural to urban settlements...
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Analysis of tariff regulation in housing and utilities economy (in case of the city of Vologda)
Статья научная
The issues of tariff regulation in the housing and communal services in Vologda are considered in the article. On the basis of collected data about public payments for housing and communal services the growth of rates for these services has been identified. State authorities regulating tariffs and their competence are defined. A scheme of tariff, their characteristics and activities restraining growth of tariffs for public utilities are considered.
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Статья научная
Financial behavior determines people’s engagement in economic life and is therefore critical to social, financial, and economic stability. Numerous studies conducted in Russia since the mid-1990s point out the existence of “system problems” in the financial behavior of the country’s population; the problems include moderate savings and investment activity, passive pension strategies, and a low level of financial literacy. The reasons for this situation lie not only in the “Soviet past”, or in the prevalence of paternalistic sentiments, or in the specifics of “national mentality” in relation to money, or in the limited amount of free cash that people have, or in the “blind spots” of financial legislation. It is necessary to understand that financial behavior is a complex socio-economic phenomenon, formed by the impact of many different factors. Therefore, it is important to study factors that influence the content of people’s financial behavior. The goal of the paper is to identify macroeconomic factors in people’s financial behavior; the factors that can be taken into account in the regulation of the financial sector and the social sphere...
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Assessing the level of happiness: a review of Russian and foreign research
Статья научная
The article presents the main results of the first phase of the study launched in 2015 by ISEDT RAS researchers and aimed at assessing subjective satisfaction with the quality of life and its impact on social development. The article shows that subjective assessment of quality of life is a criterion for assessing the efficiency of public administration, an indicator of people’s attitude toward economic, social and political decisions. The generalization of domestic and international experience serves as the basis proving that in the post-industrial economy the phenomenon of happiness is important as a goal of public administration and criterion for evaluating its effectiveness from the viewpoint of politicians, economists, sociologists and psychologists. The authors consider the main international and national indicators and ratings of happiness that help to carry out cross-country comparisons, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages of index methodologies for assessing the level of happiness are as follows: the use of national averages without taking into account the uneven distribution of benefits and driving forces of spiritual and moral development of individuals; lack of opportunity to make prompt and regular calculations of the indices does not even reflect problems highlighted by partial indices...
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Assessing the level of social adaptation among young migrants in the megapolis
Статья научная
The purpose of the research is to develop a methodology for a sociological analysis. It should also be a basis for assessing the level of migrants’ social adaptation, its impact on the solution of key accommodation problems, behavior reactions, social sentiments, ideas about Russia’s adaptation strategies, personal acculturation strategies, and support for integration processes in the EAEU. The novelty of the research is the lack of a consistent theoretical model for the empirical measurement and explanation of these complex processes, as well as the necessity to study young Kyrgyzstan citizens living in Moscow as a group with the most serious adaptation difficulties, compared to migrants from other EAEU member states. The analysis of young Kyrgyzstan citizens’ adaptation in Moscow is based on basic ideas of sociological theories on adapting a person to changing social environment: social adaptation creates a conceptual field that encompasses a wide range of interaction with such phenomena as accommodation, acculturation and integration as a result of successful integration into the structures of host societies, adaptation to the norms and ideas of the majority. Methodological strategy includes structured interviews of young migrants from Kyrgyzstan who live in Moscow. We selected participants using the snowball sampling with the following criteria: Kyrgyzstan citizens, aged 17-30, who arrived in Moscow after 2015 and lived there for more than a month. Unlike our previous works that analyze certain aspects of adaptation of migrants from Kyrgyzstan in the Russian regions, the current study achieves several objectives. It creates opportunities for expanding the study on the social adaptation features of young citizens from the Kyrgyz Republic. Our research enhances the migrants’ social adaptation theory with new methodological content. This work also allows ensuring the implementation of further empirical studies on the social adaptation issues of migrants from the EAEU member states in Russia conceptually. It provides a differentiated approach to the development of adequate tools and mechanisms by social institutions in Kyrgyzstan, Russia, The Eurasian Economic Commission and creation of productive environment for social adaptation.
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Assessment of performance of the head of a socially-oriented establishment
Статья научная
The estimate of efficient corporate governance, as well as professional activity of the subject of this process - a Manager - is one of the most important tasks of modern management. Meanwhile, more often only the performance of an enterprise or its employees is evaluated. A number of methods are applied and optional technologies are developed. But at the same time the managers’ professional activity is still assessed insufficiently, the specific indicators of this procedure are not identified; as a rule, they do not reflect specific features of the sphere and the industry. The paper proposes indicators to evaluate efficiency of the heads of socially-oriented establishments (on the example of the health sector), describes levels of results achievement. The empirical approbation of the indicators was held during two researches conducted by the ISEDT RAS in 2013 on the basis of the elaborated methods “Analysis of conditions for the functioning and development of health care institutions in the context of the industry modernization” and “Assessment of the quality and accessibility of medical services”...
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Assessment of the effectiveness of public investment in the increase in life expectancy
Статья научная
The beginning of the 21st century was marked by the emergence of national projects in our country, which exactly correspond to the private integral indicators used by the UN in calculating the index of human capital development since 1996. The national project “Health care” is aimed at increasing life expectancy, “Education” - expanding the population's access to knowledge, “Doubling GDP” - raising people's income. Attaching equal importance to each indicator, the author of the article set a task to consider the economic efficiency of budgetary funds allocated to improve the nation's health. The author assumed a proportion as the main hypotheses about the nature of correlation between life expectancy (H) and expenditures on health care (G); the calculated coefficients of correlation (Pearson, r) of dependence H = f(G) for all RF subjects for 2003-2013 (0.49
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Статья научная
When a human person is perceived not only as a key factor in social development, but also as its objective, there appears the understanding that the qualitative shifts in the reproductive process, most valuable for the society, occur not in the material sphere, but in the sphere associated with the development of a person and satisfaction of his/her needs. This fundamental postulate helps to prioritize the goals of economic development. Economic growth without social reproduction defeats the purpose of economic development, as economic growth, which does not enhance the level and quality of life, contradicts its primary purpose. Financing of social reproduction of the population is not forced diversion of financial resources from the production process, but social investment that improves the quality of life and attracts skilled workforce to the region. The rise in salary of the economically active population has a positive effect on the formation of a profitable part of the budget, which is a prerequisite for its economic and social development on a more innovative base...
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Статья научная
Over the past few centuries, humanity has made the transition from a “society without the elderly” to an “aging society”. The consequences of global population ageing entail changes not only in the economic and demographic space, but also in the social space. At the same time, this category of consequences caused by the increase in the share and number of representatives of the older generation is the least amenable to empirical measurements and forecasting. One of the most important tasks of the “ageing” states is to solve the problem of social integration and secondary socialization of the elderly, but in the conditions of increasing technological progress there emerges a powerful structural barrier, which is expressed in the growing communication distance between generations. The “generation gap” issue originates in ancient times, but at the moment in the context of global demographic aging it is becoming increasingly important. The aim of our research is to study barriers to social integration of the older generation in the context of intergenerational communication...
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Birth rate, number of children and family income: trends and relationships
Статья научная
The relevance of the study of the relationship between the trends of birth rate, the number of children and family income is increasing in the context of the unfavorable demographic dynamics in most regions of the country. In this regard, the search for ways to influence the achievement of a desirable model of childbearing simultaneously meeting the interests of society and families remains a priority task. The purpose of the article is to assess the impact of the level of the number of children on the conditions of family life support in the Northern sparsely populated region, where the signs of the traditional type of birth rate are preserved. In accordance with the goal and based on the materials of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the authors systematized and considered the current trends in the processes of birth rate and childbearing of families, traced the influence of the birth order factor on the level and differentiation of income and consumer behavior of families. The methodological basis of the research are the methods of demographic analysis, comparison, generalization, as well as methodological tools based on the normative method and the absolute monetary approach to income assessment, socio-demographic survey. The scientific novelty of the work consists in choosing the research object which is a region with centers of multi-child parenting, assessing the differentiation of family life support conditions depending on the number of children, substantiating the factor of material security as a significant tool for state regulation of fertility processes. The results of the research can be applied in the activities of federal and regional authorities when developing the programs for demographic and family policy, adjusting measures for the implementation of the national project “Demography”. In addition, the results obtained present a large empirical material which is necessary for further study of the issues related to the competition of individual or family life needs, the value of children, on the one hand, and investment in the human capital of children or in the family life support conditions, on the other.
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Charity work of local community: results of the sociological research in the Russian region
Статья научная
In recent years, the participation of citizens in the solution of social problems and society’s self-organization has become an important research agenda. Public practices are perceived as a crucial resource for socio-economic development at the state and local levels. The purpose of this paper is to identify the development level and features of motivation for participation/non-participation in charitable activities from the standpoint of the Russian region’s local community. We present an approach to the essence and components of charity based on a critical analysis of academic literature. Through a mass public opinion survey in the Vologda Oblast, 2019; N=1900), we revealed the level of local community’s involvement in certain charity forms (helping behavior, monetary donations, volunteerism as part of public organizations’ activities). A low level of population’s participation in formal charitable practices, related to work of voluntary associations, and high informal charitable activity in various forms of helping behavior draw some attention. Using a factor analysis of latent variables, the authors determined that social norms and religious values are among the main factors that encourage a local community to engage in charity work. In addition, we revealed that the formed idea about the predominance of other entities’ social responsibility (primarily - the state) and suspicious attitude to a charity system become serious obstacles to the inclusion of a local community in charitable activities. The study on the current state of charitable activity in Russia’s local communities can provide an empirical basis and theoretical impetus for basic research in this area and for practical work aimed at studying specific types of activities to increase population’s involvement in local charity.
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Child population in Russia: main problems of development
Статья научная
The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the problems of childhood in modern Russia, the relevance of which determine the severity of the socio-economic transformations of a society in which this part of the population is most vulnerable. At the same time investments in children's development - an investment in future human capital of the country. The results of this study allowed the author to highlight three laps problems associated with “the field of childhood”. First round - problems related to the scope, size and structure of children. The second set of problems related to analysis of conditions and institutions of formation of childhood. The third set of problems of the younger generation in Russia - is an unprecedented deterioration in health. Thus, the main objective of social policy is to improve the quality potential of children in the context of reducing their numbers. In the first place in this context is the task of improving health, from birth, followed by education and socialization throughout their internal relationship as a foundation for the development of system programs of public policy with regard to childhood.
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Статья научная
The study is part of a hybrid methodology that combines field and remote methods for collecting primary sociological data. The goal of the study is to verify and show the capabilities of expert online survey in studying the issues of reforming the power and management hierarchy in conjunction with the data from official sources, representative field survey, content analysis of the regional media and online studying of network communities in regions with different levels of socio-cultural modernization, which are used as a whole in the study under a Russian Science Foundation grant. The paper presents summarized results of the initial stage (in four out of twelve regions of the Russian Federation) of this study aimed to obtain representative data on the work of government and management authorities in the context of socio-cultural modernization in individual regions, to identify relations that affect the functionality of regional administration systems, which determine the nature and level of their development, and the ability of regional power and management vertical to effectively solve socio-economic problems...
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Classification of region's municipalities by structure and level of incomes and consumer spending
Статья научная
The paper presents a classification of region's municipalities that differ according to two criteria - the structure and level of incomes, and the level of consumer spending. The author investigated the combination of income sources (wages, pensions and unemployment benefits) that form in the aggregate the amount of disposable money income of the people who live in the administrative-territorial units of Perm Krai. The author also analyzed the influence of people's incomes on retail trade turnover in the region's municipalities. The data were collected, grouped and analyzed; they show that the level of people's income in large and medium cities, which are industrial centers, exceeds considerably the values of these indicators registered in rural municipalities, single-industry settlements and depressed areas. The reason for this lies in low wages of working population, a large proportion of retirees and the unemployed in the rural areas, single-industry settlements and depressed areas...
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Collective actions and social capital: implication of concepts
Статья научная
Collective actions are the basis of social interaction. Collective action is defined as the system of organized individuals, who are included in groups, which have a certain degree of organization. The pecularity of collective activities is the fact that almost all people are involved in them, in one form or another. One of the first sociologists, who started the study of collective activities, was M. Weber. It was him who designated a collective action as a social one. While studying consumer behavior, economists also paid attention to collective activities of people (E. Ostrom). The result was the emergence of the social action concept in Sociology and the theory of collective action in Economics. Later, the number of researchers and studied problems in the context of a collective action expanded. Economists and sociologists were joined by psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists, biologists, and others. The theory of collective action allows us to explain a wide range of social life phenomena. This concept is closely related to the theory of social capital, which emerged at the intersection of economic and social sciences. Social capital is a factor that determines the intensity, effectiveness, and mass scale of collective actions. However, social capital itself is formed under the influence of collective actions. In foreign science, the problems of collective action and social capital are considered interrelated. In domestic social science, it is yet to be achieved. The theory of social capital has the umbrella effect, which allows searching for opportunities of theoretical and methodological integration of social capital components and forms of collective actions. The purpose of this article is to show, on the basis of the overview of the main research areas of social capital and collective actions in scientific literature, the most promising points of their contact for studying social reality in Russia. It includes the research of subjects of collective actions, transformation of their goals, the enrichment of the repertoire due to the emergence of new practices and the usage of virtual space. The important aspect is the environment for the implementation of collective actions, which forms their target orientation. The implication of concepts of social capital and collective action should allow us to identify aspects of mutual influence between them.
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