Factors of Income Stratification of Russian Society: Methodology of the Analysis and Role Ascriptive Characteristics. Part 2

Abstract

This article continues the presentation of results of the study, the first part of which was published in the previous issue of the journal. On the basis of the monitoring survey carried out by Institute of Sociology RAS (October 2015, N=4000), various groups of factors determining the place of individuals in the income hierarchy of the Russian society are analyzed using multinomial regression models. It is shown that for relatively prosperous middle and high - income strata these are different groups of factors than for low-income ones. The main factor that currently reduces the risks of poverty in Russia is accumulated human capital, while poor health and high dependency burden increase these risks. At the same time, for the prosperous (middle – and high-income) strata it is important to possess not only high-quality human capital, social network resource or physiological resource (health), but also cultural capital in the interpretation of P. Bourdieu, i.e. specific conditions of socialization – parents’ educational level and place of residence in childhood. High income strata are distinguished from other strata by the inclusion of their representatives in the processes of continuing education and relatively smaller dependency burden in comparison to middle- and, especially, low-income strata. It is also demonstrated that the main structural barrier for upward income mobility is the state of local labor markets, on the majority of which the number of workplaces that require high-quality human capital is relatively small, which does not contribute to its growth. As a result, upward income mobility is hindered by factors that are weakly dependent on the individual's personal qualities and actions, and his income is determined primarily by his place of birth and residence.