Rural Residents' Views On Social Reforms In The Russian Countryside

Increasing employment and decreasing unemployment

Research results show that the recent years’ reform of rural areas has contributed to an increase in employment and a decrease in unemployment and has a beneficial effect on the psychological state of rural residents. In general, the structure of the respondents' employment is as follows: two main groups of respondents are employed (48%) and pensioners (43%), which clearly characterizes the situation in the Russian countryside. Only 6% qualify themselves as unemployed ones, because women, as a rule, do housework and look after other family members, raise children (10%) or are on maternity leave (3%). It is quite predictably that the structure of employment of rural residents has gender characteristics due to both objective employment opportunities in rural areas (therefore, 63% of men and only 38% of women are employed), and the specifics of the demographic structure of the Russian population (therefore, every second woman is a pensioner, while 28% pensioners are among men). However, the shares of those engaged in housekeeping among men and women turned out to be very close (8 and 12%, respectively).

The majority of employed rural residents would respond to such question as “Are you currently working, studying, retired, on parental leave or (temporarily) not working?” that they are employees (89%) while only 12% work for themselves (as a company owner, farmer or individual entrepreneur, as a rule, men are 18% versus 6% women.) In most cases, employment in rural areas is permanent (91%), however, 7% are temporarily (seasonally or one-time) employed (more often 12% of them are men versus 5% of women.) The share of employees of enterprises and organizations, who fear losing their jobs, declined until 2008 and rose sharply up to 66.1% at the height of the 2009 crisis; later these fears began to subside. In 2018, 2/5 of villagers working at enterprises felt anxiety about the safety of their workplaces against 2/3 in 2009 and 62% in 2005. This positive trend is an important factor in improving the socio-psychological climate in Russian rural areas; however, feelings of instability in the workplace are still widespread and are the root cause of the threat of social destabilization.

The types of employment of rural respondents (FD) have been distributed by federal district as follows. The number of self-employed rural respondents in the Southern and Ural districts is significantly higher (namely, twice, it is on average every fifth against every tenth in other FDs). The vast majority of employed rural residents in the Northwestern Federal District have a permanent job (98%), and every fourth in the Far Eastern Federal District (26%) has a temporary job. Rural residents of the Central FD (52%) are least likely to be employed at their place of residence (52%), since they mainly work in nearby settlements (36%) or in other regions (14%). The main reason for such fluctuations in labour migration of rural residents is the lack of work in the specialty of the respondents in their village. In most districts, the proportion of those reporting a shortage of suitable jobs is 60% to 65%.

A striking sign of recent years is an increase in the market orientation of rural residents to non-agricultural business in the field of employment. This is largely due to the introduction of a preferential lending regime for small farming forms (SFF) in rural areas, as well as the implementation of departmental programs to support novice farmers and the development of family livestock farms. If in 2007-2009, on average 8% of respondents working at enterprises expressed their readiness to organize their own business in case of losing their job, then already 16.6% expressed their unconditional readiness in 2012 and already 23.4% did it in 2018. The share of “unconditional potential businessmen” increased due to a decrease in the share of respondents expressing their readiness to start their own business only on condition of receiving a state subsidy or a soft loan and due to reducing the group of doubters. The contingent of those who are definitely not ready for business in case of job loss is 2/5 of the number of employees. The main reasons are the lack of initial capital (73.8%) or knowledge necessary to establish and run their own business (49.5%), as well as entrepreneurial risks (48%). The unwillingness to burden themselves is cited by 30.2% of respondents, while age and health are constrained 29.3% of respondents (Voytyuk et al., 2019).

Expectations of changes in the financial situation of the family

Research has shown that the smallest number of villagers who indicated an improvement in their material situation in the previous year was noted in 2010 (14.5%), which was due to the peak of the financial and economic crisis. In the subsequent period, the share of rural residents who indicated an improvement in their financial situation over the past year began to grow (with a slight failure of this trend in 2012), but has not yet reached the level of 2008. More than half of the respondents have family income unchanged (Melnikov et al., 2021; Voytyuk et al., 2019). In 2018, those whose financial situation had been improved was the least among those employed in personal subsidiary plots and not having any other income-generating occupation (13.7%) and employees in agricultural and forestry organizations (16.5% to 17%). The financial situation of 38.5% of those employed in non-agricultural business has improved. The respondents were asked to assess their financial situation according to four qualitative levels of material well-being: “we live richly”, “we live in abundance”, “we live poorly, we can hardly make ends meet”, and “we live very poorly”. The distribution of answers has showed that the cluster of the poor (“we live poorly and very poorly”) is 35%. This is twice as much compared to official statistics. The bulk of the respondents (48%) consider themselves to be in prosperity. Most of the poor people are among those employed in personal subsidiary plots (47.3%) and those working in agricultural organizations (38.9%). The richer are those employed in non-agricultural business (20.5%), working in the city (23.4%) and peasant (farm) households (25.6%).

Attention is drawn to the growth of critical self-assessments in the adequacy of family wealth. If 1.6% of respondents believed that their financial situation was better than what they deserved on average for 2007-2010, then there were on average 2.9% of such respondents in 2011-2012, and on average 4.4% of them in 2018.

In the past three years, the proportion of people who believe that their financial situation is socially unfair has decreased: “it is worse than what they deserve”. Nevertheless, this stratum of the rural community remains the most massive. It amounted to 45.7% of the number of respondents in 2018. Most of those who stated that the level of income did not correspond to the labour contribution was among those employed in personal subsidiary plots and having no other sources of income (52.3%) and those working in agricultural enterprises (50%).

In expectation of an improvement in the financial situation of families in the near future, a negative trend has developed over the past 5 years. If 48% of respondents hoped for improvement in 2008, then they were only 41.7% in 2018. 11.6% expected the situation to worsen, while the figure was 8.7% in 2008.

According to the age of the respondents, the expectation of change is assessed differently. The people from the youngest age group responded to the question: “Has the financial situation of your family improved, worsened or remained unchanged over the past five years?” that they felt unequivocally better. That is to say, the financial situation of the family has improved in this group in every third, it has worsened in 17% of them, while in other age groups the situation is the opposite. A serious gap is observed with the onset of retirement age (it should be remembered that the share of pensioner women is higher). With age, the confidence that there is work in the specialty in their village decreases. Although the share of those who agree with this statement is approximately the same in all age groups (slightly more than 60%), the share of those who find it difficult to answer this question will grow with age from 3% to 6%, and then and up to 14%.

As to other positions characterizing self-assessments in the field of material well-being, the least optimists are among those employed in personal subsidiary plots (30.7%, including 16% of absolute pessimists) and agricultural employees (38.1%). The most optimistic are the villagers working in the city, among whom 58.3% believe that their financial situation will improve, and 6.4% expect only deterioration.

Grishina and Tsatsura (2020) found that the most vulnerable categories are the rural population over 65 and families having three or more children.

Maleva et al. (2020) propose to increase the coverage of individuals with state support measures based on a social contract to reduce the risks of chronic poverty. Providing comprehensive assistance to chronically poor families and social support for these families will contribute to the development of their human capital and reduce the level of chronic poverty of the population (Maleva et al., 2020). The use of domestic food aid in Russia will not only provide the poor people with high-quality food products, but also provide a stable guaranteed domestic demand for products.

Assessment of social infrastructure and the needs of rural residents for its improvement

Studies of housing conditions and intentions in this area have shown that the relative number of respondents (47.1%) who are satisfied with their housing conditions slightly exceeds the share of those who are not satisfied. There are much less satisfied persons among young people under 30 years of age (inclusive), for whom the housing factor is one of the main factors for gaining a foothold in the countryside. The leading reasons for dissatisfaction are insufficient space (2/5 of all respondents and the same number of young people), the need for major repairs (35.3%) and the lack of utilities (32.6%). A large proportion is accounted for “by other reasons” (29.8%) among young people, because there is probably the desire to live separately from their parents. Two fifth of those, who are unsatisfied with housing conditions, plan to improve their living conditions in the next two or three years, and the same number deny such an opportunity. Among young people, 57.2% of them plan to improve the housing conditions. 36.7% of those, who plan to improve housing conditions in the next two or three years, expect to do this for their own funds, and 20% intend to resort to a mortgage loan. Few of people are pinning their hopes on employers, as well as on programs under which it is possible to get housing on favorable terms.

An equally important indicator of the development of rural areas and the comfort of living in the countryside is the state of social infrastructure, and one of the main indicators is the state of rural roads. Every second has responded to the question: “Has the condition of roads in your area improved, deteriorated or has not changed over the past five years?” that the state of the roads in the region is poor (50%). Every third (36%) has responded that it is satisfactory. And only a small proportion of rural residents (12%) has responded that it is good. We can express cautious optimism about this indicator, because the distribution of answers to the question of how the state of roads in the area of residence of the respondents has changed over the past five years is as follows. 21% say that their condition has worsened. The opinions of the rest of the respondents have been distributed almost equally among those who have not notice the changes, and those who are sure that the situation has improved.

Other criteria for assessing the state of rural infrastructure are no less important. 60% respondents have responded to the question: “Has something in your settlement / area improved, deteriorated or has not changed over the past five years?” that the situation with trade services has clearly improved in rural areas (provision of shops, trade assortment). However, more than a third of respondents think in this regard the availability and quality of medical services have worsened.

The territorial availability of social services was determined by the availability of 13 social facilities to the rural population, including educational, medical, cultural, household, transport, postal and trade ones, etc.

The availability of social services has not changed for about 40% to 50% of the inhabitants of rural settlements, according to their estimates, over the past three to four years. According to the estimates of the villagers, the most accessible services for them are the services of school education, especially primary one (76% of positive answers), convenience stores (78%) and post office (75%). These positions have also got the least negative answers (“the facilities are practically inaccessible”), i.e. 2.9%, 3.6% and 5.2% respectively. The situation in kindergartens is much worse. They are inaccessible for almost 1/5 of rural residents. Domestic services are the least accessible to the rural population (36.5%). Concerning other social facilities, territorial accessibility is 48% (hospitals) and 62% (public transport). There is an excess of negative responses over positive ones in the field of rural health care at all facilities, except for pharmacies. In particular, this gap in estimates reaches 1.6-1.9 times for outpatient clinics (polyclinics) and hospitals, the network of which is rapidly declining.

In general, the situation with social services for the population of rural areas can be assessed as extremely acute, especially in terms of access to medical services. Even mobile medical and obstetrical stations providing primary health care are inaccessible to 8% of villagers and not quite accessible to 1/5 of them. Outpatient clinics are not available or not quite accessible to 2/5 of inhabitants; pharmacies are not available for 1/3 of people; hospitals are not available almost for half of those living in rural settlements. “Failure” is in the field of consumer services too. In particular, workshops for the repair of television and radio equipment and household appliances are inaccessible to 22% and not quite accessible to 27% of the villagers.

There is a dependence of the availability of social facilities on the number of residents. So, if 39% of the villagers of small villages (with a population of up to 200 people) say that they have access to preschool institutions, then positive answers exceed the 50% level in larger settlements. Practical inaccessibility of kindergartens is noted by 1/5 of residents of settlements with a population of up to 500 people and only by 8.5% of residents of settlements with a population of more than 5,000 people. In general, 36% of rural residents of settlements with a population of up to 200 people are outside the consumer service area and it decreases to 13% in settlements with a population of over 5,000 people (Table 1). The share of rural residents for whom postal services are unavailable decreases from 16% to 3% as the size of the settlement increases. The inaccessibility of transport services varies from 14% to 3% depending on the population size of the settlement, etc.

Primary school is not available for almost half of the respondents living in small villages. Table 2 shows the structure of inaccessibility of social facilities according to respondents.

Reproductive behaviour of the rural population: attitudes and expectations

A certain decline in the field of reproductive behaviour of the rural population is noted in 2018. The share of families of childbearing age who did not have children under 18 increased from 33.6% to 33.9%, and families having three or more children decreased to 6% versus 7.7 in 2017. A survey of families of childbearing age showed a significant positive effect on reproductive attitudes that was exerted by the presence of a registered marriage, which increased the stability of family relations. 79.6% of the surveyed young families were in a registered marriage. 71.8% of families of childbearing age are in favour of compulsory registration of the first marriage, and 21.8% consider the registration desirable. The approach to registering a second marriage is more loyal; however, even here almost three quarters of the respondents consider it desirable. 33.9% of rural families of childbearing age did not have children under the age of 18 in 2018 against 35.8% in 2015. The number of children in the family is increasing. The number of families having one child has decreased over the past three years from 38.2% to 37%, the number of those having two children increased from 21.2% to 23.1%, and the number of those having three children or more increased from 4.8% to 6%. 29.8% of families having a registered marriage had no children and 46.9% of families having an unregistered marriage had no children in 2013. There is also a significant difference between formal and informal marriages in the number of children in the family. At the same time, a positive attitude has grown in the fundamental reproductive attitudes of the villagers. The orientation towards a large family (three or more children) increased from 37.3% to 40.7% in 2012. The number of families actually planning to have two, three or more children decreased in 2018 compared to 2017. The difference between the number of children that a family would like, in principle, to have, and the planned number of children increased from 1.5 to 1.7 times.

Analysis of the reasons preventing the birth of the desired number of children has showed that, as before, the most significant of them is material difficulties. This reason strongly influences the desired large number of children in 43% of families and acts as a limiting factor in 37% of families. The second reason remains “uncertainty about the future”. It greatly interferes with childbirth in 36% of families and interferes childbirth with 40.8% of families. Housing difficulties occupy the third place; labour reasons occupy the fourth and fifth places. Among the latter, attention is drawn to a significant increase in the importance of unemployment (27.5%) as a very disturbing reason. High employment is significantly inferior to that reason in the rating (19.3) as a very interfering reason but surpasses as an interfering one. And in terms of the totality of the degrees of restriction (“very much interferes” and “interferes”) it comes to the fore while occupying the fourth place in the overall rating reasons that impede the growth of birth rates in rural areas. The rating of material difficulties in the list of reasons preventing the birth of the desired number of children is the higher, the lower the family's income. The financial situation of families living practically below the poverty line (gross income per household member is up to 7,000 roubles) greatly interferes with the implementation of reproductive attitudes in more than half of the observation units. 33.7% of such families assess this reason as interfering with childbearing. In total, the weight of “material difficulties” in poor families as a part of the reasons preventing the birth of the desired number of children is 86.3%. The financial situation constrains childbearing in 64.5% of cases even in relatively wealthy families (with a gross income per member of more than 20,000 roubles a month), whose share is only 4.1%. The respondents estimate minimum expenses for child support equal to between on average 7,300 roubles (for a child under three years old) and 13,400 rubbles (per high school child), These expenses depend on the actual income of the family, i.e. the higher it is, the higher the rating, and vice versa. In conditions of such a high “cost”, the birth of children entails the threat of sliding into poverty, even for relatively well-off families.

Migratory mood of the rural population

To assess the life situation and migratory moods, the respondents have been asked to choose one of three positions, which, in our opinion, allow us to summarize the quality of life and its relationship with the subjective threshold of tolerance:

i “For me and my family, the situation is generally favorable if difficulties arise, we manage to overcome them”;

ii “Life is very difficult, but we can still endure it”;

iii “It is no longer possible to endure such a plight”.

Analysis of estimates obtained in 2013-2018 showed a negative trend. The number of respondents who indicated the first position decreased from 45.4% to 41%, and those who noted the second and third positions increased from 35.7% to 41.2% and from 7.7% to 9% respectively. As a result, the ratio between those whose life was mostly favorable, and the group of those being in a difficult and distressful situation that could no longer be tolerated, sharply deteriorated. If the number of supporters of the first position was 2% higher than the aggregate of supporters of the second and third positions in 2013, then the situation was reversed in subsequent years. Negative assessments exceeded positive ones by 8.5% in 2017 and by 9.2% in 2018. Such a socio-structural imbalance is of great concern, especially if we consider that if the situation worsens, respondents who find it difficult to assess their position may move to a problem cluster and it will grow to 59%. In this case, migration sentiments in rural society will tend to grow. Potential migrants accounted for 41.3% among young people aged 16 to 30. These numbers increased to 29.1% and 49.9%, respectively, in 2018. Particularly noteworthy is the sharp (1.4 times) increase in the proportion of young people who have decided to leave. It accounted for on average between 14.4% and 20.3% for the years 2011-2015. Low wages remain the main reason why villagers intend to move to the city. Moreover, its rating increased from 63.9% of the number of respondents who had decided to leave for sure and were thinking about leaving in 2015 up to 69.2% in 2018. The second place is the lack of work (43.4%). The rating of this reason also increased (to 30.8% in 2012). The reason for occupying the third place belongs to the sphere of labor, that is to say, the lack of conditions for obtaining a profession and professional growth (38.1% against 28.4% in 2012). The importance of such a labor factor in migration sentiments as hard and uninteresting work also increased (from 25.3% against 21.4% in 2012). Noteworthy is the decrease in the importance of difficulties with organizing business in migration sentiments (8.1% versus 11.5% in 2012), which may be due to increased state support for small forms of farming in rural areas. The rating of such reasons as the absence of a school or kindergarten has significantly increased among the reasons motivating the outflow of the population from rural settlements. If 5% of potential migrants noted the absence of a kindergarten and 6.8% of them noted the absence schools in 2012, then the case was 12.8% and 14.8%, respectively, in 2018. Among the reasons why villagers do not intend to move to a permanent place of residence in the city or consider such a move unlikely there is the habit of living in a village where relatives and friends live (67% of respondents vs 68.2% in 2012). The next reason is material factor (the lack of funds to move restrain 56.8% of the rural population; it was 56.2% in 2012). Thus, the main reason for migration sentiments (“low wages”) is the second most important reason among the reasons hindering moving to the city.

Assessment of the work of local authorities

Taking into account the large number of accumulated problems that cause the greatest concern to rural residents, we have performed an assessment of the work of local authorities. 55% of rural residents have responded the question: “How satisfied are you with the work of the local authorities in solving the problems of your locality?” that they are not satisfied, 37% of them have responded that they are satisfied, and 16% of them believe that there are no acute problems. The greatest dissatisfaction with the work of local authorities is expressed by people without higher education. 36% of those are satisfied in this group versus 45%. This indicates a better understanding of the objective constraints (financial, infrastructural, etc.) of local municipalities.