Russians Becoming Ever Less Tolerant of Inequality, Sociologist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 15 – Over the last four years, Russians have become ever less tolerant of various kinds of social inequality and hold the government responsible for its existence, according new research by Svetlana Mareyeva, a scholar at the Moscow Institute of Sociology at the Academy of Sciences.

            Her article, “Social Inequality of Contemporary Russia in the View of the Population” (in Russian,” appears in the current issue of Moscow’s Vestnik Instituta Sotsiologii (vestnik-isras.ru/files/File/Vestnik_2018_26/Mareeva.pdf). It has been summarized by Svetlana Saltanova for the IQ portal (iq.hse.ru/news/231553048.html).

            Russians are extremely aware of inequality in Russian society, with only two percent of them saying that there is no inequality, and only nine percent saying that they have not suffered from it, Mareyeva says.  These figures haven’t changed over the last four years, but the sense of inequality in certain areas very much has.

            Fifty-four percent of Russians say that in an ideal society, there would be a high degree of social equality. “Such attitudes,” the sociologist says, “are growing: In 2012, [only] 40 percent held that to be ideal.” In most cases in both years, Russian conceive of equality as being not about outcomes but about opportunities.

            In Saltanova’s telling, Mareyeva’s study shows that “the population of the country does not exclude inequality in principle but cases of it must be legitimate. That is, they must be just.” Today, Russians view as permissible and even desirable differences in pay depending on effort, conditions of work and level of education.

            According to the sociologist, it is possible that growing anger about inequality reflects a growing sense among Russians that those on top are not playing by “’the rules of the game’” that others have to and that, as a result, those who should be rewarded aren’t being and those who are shouldn’t be.

            “The ineffectiveness or lack of ‘rules of the game’ affects how Russians think about the possibilities of people with high incomes.” Forty-six percent accept that those with higher incomes should be able to buy better housing. Thirty-seven percent consider it normal for wealthier parents to give their children better schooling.

                But differences in access to pensions and medical care are less widely tolerated. There significant shares of Russians now do not believe that those who are wealthier should have better outcomes than everyone else. Because those are issues that affect ever more Russians, especially after the pension reform, this is likely the driver behind increased concerns on inequality.

            Large majorities of Russians do not see financial success or failure as being the result of individual characteristics and efforts but rather as the product of personal ties or lack thereof, respectively. They blame the government for these, polls show, according to the sociologist.

            Seventy-five percent of Russians now say that the federal authorities must be responsible for the just distribution of material goods; 84 percent are certain that the state must struggle “first of all with inequality rather than with poverty; and 95 percent believe that the government must guarantee everyone a living wage.