The Factors behind the Demand of Russians for the State Support

Abstract

Citation: Anikin V., Lezhnina Yu., Mareeva S., Slobodenyuk E. (2020) The Factors behind the Demand of Russians for the State Support. Mir Rossii, vol. 29, no 1, pp. 31–52 (in Russian). DOI: 10.17323/1811-038X-2020-29-1-31-52

This paper addresses the underlying nature of the demands of Russians for the welfare state, specifically the demand for state support in the labor market and employment, social investments, and material support. Based on the recent findings from social policy studies, we test four different mechanisms: (a) the demographic features of the population, (b) household incomes and disposable assets, including human and social capital, (c) interests, and (d) locus control and cultural settings. Drawing on data of the all-Russian representative Monitoring survey conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2018, we argue that people’s demands for state support are very complex. In particular, we reveal a paradox in the relative impact of income. On the one hand, the Russian data confirm the hypothesis of ‘altruistic reach’ developed in recent studies, according to which, in highly unequal societies, higher economic standing is associated with higher demand for redistributive policies. On the other hand, higher economic standing also fosters state escapism of those affluent Russians who do not regard the state as a reliable agent capable of solving their problems.