Everyday Life of Russians: Civil and Consumer Practices

Abstract

Ekaterina Bogomolova – Senior Specialist, Public Opinion Foundation. Address: bldg. 16a, 15, Rochdelskaya St., Moscow, 123022, Russian Federation. E-mail: bogomolova@fom.ru
Elena Galitskaya – Chief Specialist, Institute of Public Opinion Foundation. Address: bldg. 16a, 15, Rochdelskaya St., Moscow, 123022, Russian Federation. E-mail: galitskaya@fom.ru
Yulia Kot – Leading Specialist, Public Opinion Foundation. Address: bldg. 16a, 15, Rochdelskaya St., Moscow, 123022, Russian Federation. E-mail: kot@fom.ru
Elena Petrenko – Candidate of Science in Philosophy, Science Director, Public Opinion Foundation. Address: bldg. 16a, 15, Rochdelskaya St., Moscow, 123022, Russian Federation. E-mail: petrenko@fom.ru

This article discusses various empirical indicators for measuring various everyday social practices which characterize the lifestyle and consumption patterns of modern Russians, and their patterns of civil participation. These indicators are used for constructing a typology of different social groups, their description and analysis. One of the purposes of this analysis is to identify socially active groups, the members of which have learnt to minimize the time spent on routine daily activities and thus endowed themselves with more time for self-development and civil participation. Such groups are viewed as a basis for the further development of civil society in Russia. We introduce several indices, which are used for the identification and analysis of different social groups: The index of Civil Climate measures the values and attitudes of respondents which characterize the level of interpersonal and social trust. The index of Civil Behaviour measures the actual participation and the readiness of respondents to engage in various civil activities. Both indices are then used to construct a composite index, which measures the community’s potential for civil engagement. The index of Life Satisfaction is introduced as a composite measure of the social effects of civil participation. The empirical analysis is based on representative survey data collected by the Public Opinion Foundation between 2012 and 2016 (including weekly national surveys (N=1500), large-scale national surveys (N=60500) and a survey of citizens in larger Russian cities (N=1500)). Our analysis reveals that it is generally the people with higher levels of life satisfaction who exhibit higher levels of civil participation and social responsibility, and form the basis of society’s modernization.