Russian households: Dynamics of income, expenditures, social well‑being (1994–2022)
Authors:   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Voronin G.L. , Dorofeeva Z.E. ,   HSE University, Moscow,Russian Federation, Evgrafova K.O. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Kiseleva I.P. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Kozyreva P.M. ,   HSE University, Moscow,Russian Federation, Kosolapov M.S. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Smirnov A. I. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Sokolova S.B. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation, Tonis E.I. ,   Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation
Published: October 2024

In this article, we demonstrate how socio‑economic conditions of Russian households had been changing from 1994 to 2022. To do so, we rely on the data from a unique series of nationally representative household surveys “Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics” (RLMS‑HSE). As the RLMS‑HSE data shows, the average real household income declined by 7.1% in 2022. There was a slight increase in wages, with a 2.9‑percent rise in 2021 and a 1.8‑percent rise in 2022. Income from government transfers saw a significant increase of 14% in 2021, yet this was followed by a decline back to previous levels, with a 13.5‑percent decrease in 2022. Household income received from domestic production and informal employment declined significantly, with income in cash being two times lower and income in‑kind being 1.5 times lower compared to 2021. Monetary transfers from relatives and charitable donations to households contracted by 8.5% in 2022. Following a brief decline from 45.7 to 45.1% in 2021, the proportion of wages in the total gross household income increased and reached 47.2% in 2022. Income inequality remained at the level observed in 2021, with the average income of the top 20% of households being 2.3 times higher than the average income of the bottom 20% of households. The modest 3.2% growth in average household expenditure recorded in 2021 slowed down to 0.3% in 2022. As a result, household expenditure failed to recover from a precipitous decline of 30% observed in the initial phase of the COVID‑19 pandemic in 2020. The disparity in household expenditure between the top and bottom 20% of households persisted, with affluent families spending 5.1 times more than those in poverty. The unemployment rate remained at the lowest level ever recorded standing at 3.1% of the total labor force. However, labor force participation fell from 81.5% in 2021 to 80.6% in 2022. The gender pay gap decreased with women earning 76.8% of men’s average income in 2022 compared to 73.2% in 2021. The proportion of workers facing wage arrears in 2022 was 0.7%, representing a slight uptick from the historic low of 0.6% recorded a year earlier. However, there was a further increase in delayed pension payments. The proportion of retirees failing to receive their monthly pensions on time rose from 1.5% in 2018 to 9.3% in 2022 among men and from 1.4 to 7.8% among women. In 2022, public attitudes were characterized by two opposing trends. While general life satisfaction and self‑assessed economic well‑being improved slightly in 2022, people were increasingly pessimistic about their economic prospects. However, people felt more confident about their employment opportunities. The proportion of respondents who believed they would be able to find another job if they lost their current position increased consistently from 32% in 2020 to 37.4% in 2021 and to 39.1% in 2022. In contrast, the proportion of respondents who expressed concern about their ability to secure employment declined from 46% in 2020 to 38.7% in 2021 and to 36.8% in 2022. Furthermore, the data indicates a notable increase in job satisfaction during the same period.