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Sociological Research, vol. 47, no. 2, MarchApril 2008, pp. 632. 2008 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1061-0154/2008 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/SOR1061-0154470201

LIUDMILA KHAKHULINA

Work in the System of Life Orientations of the Russian Population

Statement of the problem. The present article presents the results of a second comparative international study carried out in 2005 by the Levada Center in the framework of the International Program of Comparative Research (ISSPInternational Social Science Program) and was devoted to the study of the populations assessments and opinions concerning different aspects of their work activity.1 The method of the survey and the questionnaire that was developed by the ISSP methodology group was two-thirds a repeat of the questions of the rst survey carried out in 1998. This made it possible to analyze the character of the changes that had taken place over that span of years in the respondents attitudes toward work. The focus of the study was peoples attitudes toward work as such, toward a specic job, and toward the organization in which their work activity took place.

English translation 2008 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text 2006 the Iurii Levada Analytical Center (Levada Center) and the Interdisciplinary Academic Center of the Social Sciences (Intercenter). Trud v sisteme zhiznennykh orientatsii Rossiiskogo naseleniia, Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia. Dannye. Analiz. Diskussii, 2006, no. 5, pp. 2737. A publication of the Levada Center and Intercenter. Translated by Kim Braithwaite.
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Since we had data from the two surveys we wanted to obtain answers to the following questions. What is represented by work in Russians present system of values, and have their assessments of the importance of work changed over the past seven years? Does work constitute a value in and of itself (as an area in which to accomplish ones aspirations and make use of ones natural abilities and acquired knowledge), or, as the previous study showed, is work still, as before, looked upon chiey as a means of livelihood, while all other aspects of worksuch as its content, importance in society, the opportunity to advance and achieve successplay substantially smaller roles in peoples motivation to work. A second group of questions of interest to us concerned any changes in the respondents attitudes toward the specic jobs in which they were employed: how satised are they with their jobs, to what extent does the work that they do satisfy the aspirations that are formed by their overall attitudes in the sphere of work? A third group of questions concerned the study of change in the respondents assessments of their place of work and the organization in which their work activity takes place, the extent to which workers are motivated to work in the specic organization, and how they rate their chances in the labor market. The responses to the questions that were asked are important for an understanding of the processes by which peoples system of life orientations come into being and develop, responding to the changed conditions of life, a system in which their orientations toward work occupy quite a signicant place. We are proceeding on the supposition that the fundamental changes that have taken place in the labor market in the past ve to seven years have inuenced peoples work behavior and their orientations toward work. Specialists on problems of the labor market have singled out two main stages of its emergence and development.2 The rst stage, which extended over almost the entire period of the 1990s, was characterized by a drastic decline in employment and rising unemployment, and a more than threefold decline in wages and salaries compared with 1991. During that period, certain forms of adaptation to the crisis situation in the labor market became widely prevalent, such as working partial days, going on [unpaid] adminis-

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

trative leave, doing various kinds of occasional work, experiencing delayed payments and payments in kind, and under-the-table pay. For this reason, as the 1998 survey showed, the most highly valued thing about a job at that time was that it was guaranteed, that is, there was little apprehension that the job would be downsized. Next came the amount of pay and its regularity. People were even motivated to work for low pay as long as they did not lose their jobs, because it was not easy to nd another job. Many people were willing to work even more than they had to for the enterprises success because they hoped this would allow them to keep their jobs and receive the kind of pay they had coming to them. The second period involves the economic growth that began in 1999 and has continued to the present, a period of growth that changed the labor market situation for the better. By this time, the mass layoffs of manpower had ended and the economic growth that had begun raised the level of demand for manpower to the normal level of employment and reduced the level of unemployment to 57 percent. Wages and salaries rose by an average 1020 percent every year. The sectoral and professional structures of the workforce changed. Workforce layoffs from industrial enterprises led to increased employment in the services sphere, in which up to 60 percent of all employed people are currently working. This restructuring of the labor market made it necessary for a substantial proportion of workers to change professions and to acquire new knowledge and skills. That period was characterized by a substantial rise in workforce mobility, and in regard to cadre turnover a large number of job terminations involved workers who left an enterprise on their own initiative rather than because of downsizing at the initiative of the administration. Workforce mobility became one of the most effective ways by which people adapted to changing labor market conditions. It is reasonable to assume that in a situation of increased demand for manpower, especially well-qualied manpower, and with greater mobility, peoples orientation toward other aspects of work, such as its content and working conditions, and opportunities to advance and earn higher pay, are becoming as important as having a guaranteed job.

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Characterization of the surveyed population. The structure of the surveyed population included: people working at a regular job made up 60 percent (versus 51 percent in 1998); the unemployed segment stood at 40 percent, of which school students and college students made up 6 percent, retired people (on account of age or disability)23 percent, housewives4 percent, and unemployed or temporarily not working people6 percent. The form of employment and professional and job status of the surveyed working population was distributed as follows (as a percentage of the number of respondents): Group of respondent Self-employed people, including entrepreneurs Hired employees Managers of enterprises and subunits Specialists White-collar workers Military service personnel Blue-collar workers Percentage 4 6 25 14 3 49

The self-employed group is the smallest and most differentiated. The respondents who indicated this form of employment as their main job totals 4 percent among the working respondents, but another 4 percent reported that their self-employment was in the form of a supplementary job. In terms of composition, this group includes both entrepreneurs per se, such as owners of enterprises and rms, and people who are engaged in individual work activity that involving trade and providing different kinds of services, such as construction, repairs, tutoring, private hauling and transportation, and so on. The group of military service personnel includes ofcers of the armed forces, personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and members of the procuracy. The group of specialists includes specialists of different proles who have a higher education, but, at the same time, do not perform managerial functions. The group of white-collar workers includes personnel who have a secondary specialized education. The group of blue-collar work-

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ers includes people engaged in qualied or unqualied physical labor, including in the eld of agriculture as well as crew chiefs and foremen. Among the surveyed population, 16 percent had a higher education; 24 percent had a general secondary education; 34 percent had a secondary specialized education; and 26 percent had an education below the secondary level. A large proportion of the employed people (53 percent) work at state and municipal enterprises and organizations; 36 percent work at private companies, 7 percent in the nonstate, noncommercial sector, and 4 percent have their own business. For the most part, the respondents work a full workweek of forty-one hours. The place occupied by work in the overall structure of life and activity. It is possible to get an idea of the place occupied by work in Russians system of life and activity on the basis of data on their subjective assessments of the amount of time that they spend in different kinds of activity. For example, if a person sees his work as an unpleasant necessity for a means of livelihood, it is quite likely that he will have the subjective desire to spend less of his time working and devote more of his time to other kinds of activity, such as taking care of household duties and spending leisure time with friends and family. If, however, work is viewed not only as a means of livelihood but also as a sphere in which to use ones knowledge, abilities, and opportunities for self-assertion, then a person will be more inclined to spend a fair amount of time on it, sometimes even at the expense of other aspects of his life. In the course of the survey the respondents were asked a question concerning which activities they would like to devote more time to and which ones they would prefer to devote less time to. The distribution of their answers showed that no fundamental changes had taken place in their preferences in the preceding seven years (see Table 1). At the same time, a desire to spend less time on work can be discerned clearly. For example, the share of respondents who would like to devote more time to work fell from 30 percent to 25 per-

Table 1

Subjective Assessments of Amount of Time Spent on Different Kinds of Activity (% of respondents; answers to the question How much time would you like to devote to . . .?)
The same 2005 25 31 51 37 57 49 45 40 47 28 46 48 41 48 34 16 16 2 11 9 1998 2005 1998 Less 2005 26 18 3 10 6 Difcult to answer 1998 5 4 7 8 5 2005 4 3 5 5 2

More

Activity

1998

Work Household concerns Family Friends Rest, leisure time

30 34 51 34 58

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cent, while the share of those who would prefer to spend less time on work rose from 16 percent to 26 percent. Does this mean that people have started to take a more pragmatic attitude toward their work? Undoubtedly this is true to some extent, especially when we consider that under todays conditions the sphere of leisure time has become signicantly more varied than it was ten years ago, and that there are many more opportunities to acquire new knowledge (which also takes free time). At the same time, subjectively, people did not express a desire to spend more time on these aspects of life than they had earlier. For this reason, peoples desire to reduce the amount of time spent on work is evidently also linked, among other things, to the fact that because of rising wages and salaries it is possible to maintain their customary (or desired) way of life by working less and refraining, for example, from doing work on the side. And even though the share of respondents who were holding down an additional job did not decline, remaining at the level of 1314 percent of all working respondents, nonetheless, apparently, subjectively, some workers would like to give it up if that were made possible by earning higher pay in their main jobs. There are observable differences between the different groups of workers in terms of their preferences. For example, understandably, young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four would like to spend more of their time with friends and in leisure activities. Older people (age forty and above) would like to spend more time with their families (60 percent versus 50 percent on average). Specialists who have a higher education, as well as managers, have a similar structure of preferences: they would like to devote more time to their families (6070 percent of the respondents versus 51 percent on average for the entire sample) and have more free time (6971 percent among the respondents in this group) and get together with friends more often. The entrepreneurs reported more often than the other respondents that they would like to devote more time to household concerns (49 percent versus 31 percent on average) and to their families (64 percent versus 51 percent on average). The data that were obtained provide evidence that in the past while the importance of work, compared with other aspects of life, far from rising actually declined slightly. Peoples desire to devote

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more time to household and family concerns, to getting together with friends and engaging in leisure activities, is based on the fact that subjectively these activities are felt to be more important than work activity. In addition, free time represents a space for selfdevelopment, for upgrading ones qualications and mastering new skills, which is very important for young people and for those who have a higher education. For this reason, for these groups of the population free time is a value that is no less important than work. The results make it reasonable to suggest that just as it was seven years ago, at present work is not a dominating value for most people compared with other spheres of life such as family and family relations, friendship ties, and free time. At the same time, work still is a very important aspect of peoples life and activity, since it provides them with a means of livelihood. In consideration of the characteristics of the economic situation in the country in the 1990s, owing to rising unemployment and the declining standard of living of large portions of the population, an attitude toward work exclusively as a way to earn money became dominant in the mass consciousness. At the same time, all other aspects of work that might cause people to view it as a value in and of itself (the opportunity to put ones natural abilities to work and acquire knowledge, and to achieve success and status in society), tended to be relegated to secondary importance, although they did not lose their signicance. It is quite likely, however, that the improvement of the economic situation and the lessening of tensions in the labor market, as well as rising wages and salaries at the beginning of the twenty-rst century, could lead to changes in the mass consciousness wherein the value of work as such (regardless of how much it pays) might increase. There can be no doubt that in their pure form, an orientation toward work solely as a means of livelihood and an orientation toward work as a value in and of itself, practically never go together in the natural world of society. We are talking about a dominant element in peoples attitudes toward work. To check our assumption, the respondents were presented with two statements that express these two extreme points of view in regard

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to work only as a source of means of livelihood and as a sphere of life and activity in which a person can nd self-realization. The data that obtained in the course of the 2005 survey show that no substantial changes took place in the respondents orientations since 1998 (see Table 2). At the same time, we nd a noticeable decline in the share of respondents who link self-realization specically with work activity (i.e., they would be willing to work for the sake of the work itself), which corresponds to the data presented above concerning the relative value of different kinds of activity in life. As before, half of the respondents among the working population look at their work solely as a way to earn money, while just slightly more than a third of them view work as an essential kind of activity, regardless of how much it pays. Compared with the 1990s, peoples attitudes toward work are becoming more pragmatic. As we compare the data for 1998 and 2005, we note that the share of respondents who would be willing to work even if they did not need the money turned out to be smaller than the share of those who do not hold this viewalthough seven years ago the ratio was the reverse. An attitude toward work as a value in and of itself is most likely to be encountered among enterprise managers and specialists, while the purely pragmatic attitude tends to be found mostly among workers with low qualications; this was also found in earlier surveys, including during the Soviet era. The actual character of the work done by managers and specialists requires that their efforts include use of their creative abilities, accumulated knowledge, and acquired experience, and we thus nd fewer among them who view their work only as a way to earn money. It is quite likely that their dominating orientation toward work as an opportunity to put their knowledge, skills, and creative abilities to work as well as their desire to be of benet to other people enabled many specialists to continue working in the sciences, education, health care, and culture even during the 1990s when there were drastic declines in pay, and salaries were not paid regularly. Such attitudes enable them to continue working in these elds at the present time as well, even though the pay levels in these elds remain rather low.

Table 2

To What Extent Do You Agree or Disagree with the Following Statements . . .? (% of respondents)

Agree 1998 51 40 38 18 15 50 18 17 27 33 2005 1998 2005 1998

Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree 2005 31 42

Difcult to answer 1998 4 9 2005 2 5

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Work is just a way to earn money and nothing more I would be happy to work even if I did not need the money

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SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 3 Considering the Time That You Work in Your Main Job, and the Money That You Are Paid There, Which Would You Prefer? (% of respondents)
1998 To work more time and earn more money To work the same amount of time and earn the same amount of money To work less time and earn less money Difcult to answer 69 18 1 12 2005 55 29 2 14

Peoples orientation to work more and earn more has declined over the past few years. At the same time, the share of those who are satised with the time they spend working and the money that they are paid for it has increased by a factor of 1.6; there can be no doubt that these things reect positive shifts in peoples earnings. However, the orientation work more and make more remains dominant (see Table 3). Workers of this orientation make up the majority among the working population, and this is especially true of those of the most active working age, twenty-ve to thirty-nine; they are two times more likely to be found among the categories of workers who do not earn very much, such as white-collar employees who have no specialty and blue-collar workers of low qualications. This latter fact is not surprising if we consider the composition of this group of the workers who took part in the survey. Many are engaged in trade or in providing services of various kinds. For them, such activity is attractive, rst and foremost, because it provides them the opportunity to make a decent income for their family and to quite a large extent this also depends, along with other factors, on the amount of time that they spend at work. It is worthwhile to note, at the same time, that compared with the 1990s, the view of ones labor exclusively as a source of income has also become less prevalent among the self-employed, although it tends to be found more often than in the case of specialists, for example. Summarizing the ndings, we can say that, as before, the

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Table 4 In Your Work, How Important Are These Things to You Personally . . .? (% of those responding very important and quite important)
1998 A guarantee of keeping my job High pay Good opportunities for advancement Having an interesting job The opportunity to work independently The opportunity to do work that helps other people The opportunity to work for the benet of society The opportunity to allocate my work time as I see t 82 91 53 73 59 60 70 70 2005 87 93 61 82 56 63 72 51

pragmatic attitude toward work solely as a way to earn money is characteristic of half of the working population. The other half of the population, on the other hand, tends to have a more complex attitude toward work, in regard to which particular aspects of it have different meanings for different categories of workers. The comparative importance of different aspects of work. To understand the mechanism by which work orientations form under the new economic conditions, the task was to determine which aspects of work are important to workerswhat things they value most of all. The data presented in Table 4 show that, just as was the case seven years ago, the most important characteristics of work, as the workers see it, are that they are able to earn good pay and have a guarantee of employment. These results are completely expected. On the one hand, in the eyes of workers the pay that they earn represents an integral evaluation of the positions of such work activity and of the worker himself in the labor market and the results of his work. On the other hand, the high value placed on pay levels reects the rather low pay in many enterprises, and also that there are very signicant differences in the pay earned by different social and professional groups. Having a guaranteed job actually increased slightly in importance in the eyes of the working population; this is a reection of

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SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

their desire to have a stable job that enables them to be condent about the future. There was a noticeable increase in the role played by characteristics of the assessments of work, such as whether the work is interesting or not and good opportunities for advancement, and, at the same time, a decline in the importance attributed to characteristics such as the opportunity to manage my work time as I see t. It seems evident that this latter consideration is linked, rst and foremost, to the fact that with increased employment in a main job and increased pay levels, the need to engage in occasional work on the side is becoming less urgent. There have been no signicant changes in the assessments of aspects of work such as the desire to be of benet to society and to provide help to other people. As before, these aspects of work are important to the majority of workers (they were mentioned by 72 percent and 63 percent, respectively). In my opinion, the changes that have taken place in peoples assessments of the importance of different aspects of their work are a reection of the fact that they are placing higher demands on their work, and that nonmaterial values in the sphere of work have risen. What is important to workers these days is not just having a job that pays well and provides condence that one will not be out of work tomorrow, but also what kind of work one does, and whether the work will enable one to achieve professional success, make more money, and enhance prestige, and also whether the work is important to society. For the overwhelming majority of workers surveyed, however, the level of pay and having a guaranteed job represent the most important characteristics of their work. At the same time, there are noticeable differences among groups of workers when it comes to their evaluations of the importance of different aspects of the work. For example, while, on average, the importance that all workers attach to the ability to allocate their work time as they see t has declined, this has not been the case for managers and entrepreneurs, people who have a higher education. Good prospects for advancement turned out to be important to 85 percent of young respondents between the ages of eighteen and

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twenty-four, 70 percent of people who have a higher education, and 72 percent of managers (versus 61 percent on average for all workers). To 90 percent of the respondents who are self-employed and 81 percent of the managers, it is of huge importance to have the ability to work independently, whereas for rank-and-le workers who are hired employees, this circumstance, along with the opportunity to manage my work time as I see t, turned out to be the least important when compared with the others. Satisfaction with the work and assessment of its different aspects. The recognition that particular aspects of work are important reects, as it were, peoples aspirations and expectations in the sphere of their work activity. The extent to which these aspirations are satised in regard to a particular job has a very important inuence on a persons level of satisfaction with work in general and his specic job in particular. It should be noted that we nd an improvement in the survey participants assessments of their job in regard to all of its characteristics that they were asked about (see Table 5). At the same time, as before, there is still a noticeable discrepancy between the respondents aspirations and their actual assessments of their work in regard to the most important parameters. As was to be expected, the most important gap (as before) involved their assessments of their pay. While high earnings are acknowledged as an essential characteristic of their work by almost all of the respondents, only 29 percent of them agreed that their work gives them such pay. And although that gure rose by seven percentage points above the level of seven years earlier, the gap between what is desired and what is actual remains quite substantial, despite steady rises in wages and salaries over those years. A major gap also persists in respondents assessments of their chances for advancement. Only about a quarter of the respondents stated that their jobs afford these opportunities (in 1998 the corresponding gure was only 11 percent), even though two-thirds of the workers surveyed say that this aspect of their work is very important. As the level of unemployment decreased, respondents assessments of how well guaranteed their jobs are increased. Two-thirds

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SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 5 Do You Agree That Your Main Job . . . (% of those responding agree completely and mostly agree)
1998 Guarantees that I will keep my job Provides high pay Affords good opportunities for advancement Is interesting Enables me to work independently Enables me to provide help to other people Is of benet to society Makes it possible to allocate my work time as I see t Gives me the opportunity to upgrade my qualications 51 22 11 46 48 49 68 34 2005 62 29 24 54 44 57 73 49

of the respondents held this opinion of their work; however, 87 percent of them believe that it is important to guarantee people the jobs in which they are employed. And even though the gap between what is desired and what is actual did become slightly smaller during those years, it is still quite substantial. More than half of the workers surveyed (54 percent) say that their work is interesting (the gure in 1998 was 46 percent). However, 72 percent now, the same as seven years ago, say that it is important for their work to be interesting. And even though the discrepancy does have a tendency to get smaller, it nonetheless remains quite appreciable. Only in the respondents assessments of their work from the standpoint of its importance to society, the opportunity to provide help to other people, and the importance of these aspects of the work, do we nd almost no discrepancies. The survey participants were also asked to rate their work from the standpoint of the physical and nervous load that it imposes (see Table 6). Compared with the earlier survey data, the respondents assessments of the physical severity of their work hardly changed at all. Always, or very often, 40 percent of the respondents come home

Table 6

How Often Do You . . .? (% of respondents)

Always or very often 1998 40 27 32 19 40 28 44 23 40 23 35 19 38 19 27 17 18 47 31 55 2005 1998 2005 1998 From time to time Very rarely or never 2005 21 51 27 47 Difcult to answer 1998 2 3 2 7 2005 1 2 2 3

Come home from work tired out Engage in heavy physical labor Find yourself tense and stressed out at work Have to work in dangerous conditions

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from work tired out; 28 percent are engaged in heavy physical labor; and 23 percent are employed in dangerous conditions, which gure is slightly higher than it was eight years ago. The proportion of those who, by their own assessments, are always or very often under tension and stress at their work increased substantially. In 1998 this was mentioned by 32 percent of the respondents; in 2005 the gure was 44 percent. At the same time, relations at work between superiors and subordinates, and between colleagues, improved, according to the workers. For example, 75 percent of the respondents rate their relations with other coworkers as good or very good, and 60 percent give the same rating to relations between the administration and the workers. Moreover, these assessments, compared with the earlier survey data, have improved markedly. Accordingly, it is reasonable to suggest that stress on the job is linked more often to the content of the work itself, and its level of intensiveness, than to the psychological climate in the collective. A state of stress and severe nervous strain on the job was mentioned most often by managers and specialists. Blue-collar workers and self-employed people reported engaging in heavy physical labor to a greater extent. Managers and blue-collar workers were more likely to feel tired out after work. It seems evident that a feeling of being tired out can result not only from physical stress but also from heightened nervous tension. A quite important aspect of work involves the opportunity to use ones acquired knowledge and accumulated experience. This characteristic is undoubtedly one of the factors inuencing a persons attitude toward his work as a value in and of itself. At the same time, during the years of radical economic reform, many workers found themselves forced to change professions and types of employment in order to adapt to the changed labor market conditions. Those who kept their profession found themselves forced to work under fundamentally new conditions, and this could hardly fail to inuence the content of the work itself and, accordingly, their assessments of the usefulness of their past knowledge and experience. Slightly fewer than half of the workers surveyed (45 percent) said

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that they were able to make use of their knowledge and experience acquired in previous work, whereas eight years earlier, more than half (58 percent) thought that their past experience and knowledge proved useful in their new work. At the same time, two-thirds of the respondents said that if they had to change jobs now, their present knowledge and experience would be useful to them. These data show that the majority of workers feel that they were able to adapt in those years to the professional requirements of the labor market. Peoples assessments of the various aspects of their work from the standpoint of their expectations and aspirations, their physical and nervous loads, and opportunities to make use of their knowledge and experience, constitute factors that determine their level of satisfaction with work. This level of satisfaction with the work turned out to be higher than might have been expected when we consider the substantial discrepancies between the greater requirements imposed on the work and peoples actual assessment of its most important aspects. At the same time, the improvement in the respondents assessments of almost all aspects of their work, evidently, could hardly fail to result in their increased with the work. Compared with the 1990s, the proportion of respondents who are satised with their work increased somewhat. In 1998, for example, 57 percent of the respondents were satised with their jobs; in 2005 the gure was 63 percent. As before, 17 percent of the respondents are dissatised with their jobs. The remaining 20 percent of the respondents are satised with their present jobs to some extent, and dissatised to some extent (see Table 7). Assessments of place of work and potential mobility. The survey data show that compared with the 1990s, working for myself has become more attractive. At present, about half of the respondents (47 percent) would like to work as hired employees, and almost the same proportion (42 percent) would like to work for themselves (versus 27 percent in 1998) (see Table 8). However, the share of self-employed people has hardly changed at all compared with 1998, and totals 89 percent, including those who have their own business as a supplementary job. This means that there is unutilized potential for the development of small and medium-size business.

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SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 7 Speaking in General, to What Extent Are You Satised with Your Present Job? (% of respondents)
1998 Satised Mostly satised Neither satised nor dissatised Mostly dissatised Dissatised Difcult to answer 39 18 26 8 8 1 2005 40 23 20 11 6 1

Table 8 If You Were Able to Choose, Which Would You Prefer . . .? (% of respondents)
1998 To work as a hired employee To work for myself (engage in my own business, provide private services) To work in a small enterprise To work in a large enterprise To work in the private sector To work in a state enterprise or institution To work full time (thirty hours per week or more) To work less than full time Not to work at all 56 27 41 35 22 59 58 26 7 2005 47 42 47 38 31 58 59 27 9

Among respondents who prefer to work for themselves, the share of young people up to age twenty-four (68 percent) and men (58 percent) is higher than the average. Almost all of those surveyed who are engaged in entrepreneurship would like to remain in their present capacity. This latter circumstance provides evidence that at present this category of working people has become consolidated

MARCHAPRIL 2008 25

as a professional group that deliberately chose their type of occupation, in contrast to self-employed people in the 1990s. At that time, about half of them, according to their own assessments, got involved in business because they had to, owing to unfavorable circumstances such as loss of a job, failure to get paid, or pay that was too low. For this reason, they would have liked to return to their previous jobs if circumstances were more favorable (if their pay were raised, if the enterprise or organization would begin to operate normally again).3 In the years after that, evidently, some of them did return to work as hired employees, while those who stayed in business view their occupation as their preference. This fact provides evidence that they are quite highly motivated to engage in entrepreneurial activity and that they have a desire to retain this status in the future as well. And so, the desired place of work preferred by the majority of the workers surveyed can be presented as follows. Working as a hired employee and working for myself are almost equally attractive. But, as before, more workers would prefer to work in the state sector than in the private sector. It should be noted, however, that compared with the 1990s the private sectors attractiveness increased, especially among young people and those living in big cities where this sector has become very well developed. Many prefer to work in fairly small enterprises with up to 200 employees instead of in large enterprises, and prefer to work a full workweek rather than an incomplete one (see Table 8). How do workers themselves rate their chances of nding the kind of work they would like? According to the respondents subjective assessments, the labor market situation has become less tense. One out of three respondents believes that it would be easy for him, or at least it would not be very hard, to nd a suitable job. In 1998, only one out of ve workers had that opinion. However, a substantial portion of the respondents still think that it would not be easy for them to nd a suitable job, in spite of the fact that the proportion of these pessimists has declined compared with 1998, by ten percentage points (see Table 9). Among young people and those with a higher education, pessimistic assessments

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SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 9 How Hard or Easy Would It Be for You to Find a Job That Was at Least No Worse Than Your Previous Job? (% of respondents)
1998 Easy Neither easy nor hard Fairly hard Very hard Difcult to answer 4 15 27 46 8 2005 12 21 43 20 4

of their chances are found two times less often than the average. Self-employed people and managers are more self-condent. They are two to three times more likely than specialists or bluecollar workers to say that it would not be hard for them to nd suitable work. Although unemployment went down compared with the 1990s, respondents apprehensions that they could lose their jobs hardly changed at all. About half the workers (48 percent) are afraid that they might lose their jobs now; for about 30 percent, while they do have such apprehensions, it is not to a very high degree; and 20 percent of the workers surveyed have no fear at all of losing their jobs. What would workers be willing to do in order to avoid being out of work? Evidently, the less they are willing to sacrice the less tense the situation in the labor market is, as they see it. The data show a high level of readiness to change professions and specialties. For example, 75 percent of the respondents would be willing to go through retraining in order not to end up being out of work. Slightly less than half (4044 percent) would be willing to be temporarily employed and to take a job far away from their homes (see Table 10). In our opinion, these data provide evidence that most workers are inclined to exible behavior in the labor market. However, many workers would not be willing to take a job that offered lower pay (only one out of ve expressed a willingness to do so). Evidently, this is because, rst of all, the present level of

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Table 10 To What Extent Could You Agree or Not Agree with the Following Statements? In Order to Avoid Being Unemployed, Would You Be Willing to Take a Job . . .? (% of respondents)
Would be neither willing nor unwilling 12 14 17 18

Would be willing That required new skills and abilities That paid less That involved temporary work That would require traveling farther away from home 73 22 41 44

Would be unwilling 11 61 38 35

Difcult to answer 4 3 4 3

Table 11 How Likely Is It That You Would Try to Find a Job in a Different Enterprise or Institution in the Next Twelve Months? (% of respondents)
1998 Likely Not very likely Practically ruled out Difcult to answer 30 40 24 6 2005 25 42 29 4

wages and salaries is already rather low for most workers, and, second, in their opinion, they would be able to nd a job that offered at least the same rate of pay. For this reason, despite the prevalence of peoples pessimistic assessments of their chances in the labor market, their potential mobility, that is, their willingness to change jobs, is still higher than might have been expected, and, compared with the 1990s, has even increased slightly.

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Table 12 To What Extent Do You Agree or Disagree with the Following Statements? (% of respondents)
Agree 1998 For the success of the enterprise you would be willing to work more and harder You are proud that you are working at your enterprise You would refuse to take another job offer for higher pay in order to remain at your own enterprise If the opportunity arose you would exchange your job for a different one 2005 Neither agree nor disagree 1998 2005 Disagree 1998 2005

30 34

32 40

27 32

24 28

34 27

40 29

22

25

13

13

52

53

48

55

15

17

28

21

If they had to, more than half the workers surveyed (55 percent) would change to a different job, and only one out of ve does not intend to do so (see Table 12). At the same time, however, only a quarter of the respondents would try to nd another place to work in the next twelve months (see Table 11). Evidently, peoples potential mobility, as expressed in their very general intention to change jobs, basically reects their dissatisfaction with certain aspects of their present work, dissatisfaction that is based on the discrepancy between their ideas about what aspects are important in their work, and the extent to which their actual jobs correspond to these ideas. As we recall, these discrepancies were signicant to the majority of workers surveyed. The answer to a question about the extent to which potential mobility can turn into actual mobility is determined, to a very large extent, by how people relate to their jobs in the particular organization or enterprise. A third

MARCHAPRIL 2008 29

of the respondents would be willing to work more and harder to assure the success of the enterprise in which they are working; twofths are proud that they are working at the particular enterprise; a quarter of the respondents would even be willing to turn down a different job offering more pay in order to continue working in their present enterprise (see Table 12). This group of workers, who make up slightly more than a third of the respondents, can be classied provisionally as highly motivated workers from the standpoint of working at a specic enterprise. That proportion hardly changed at all compared with the previous survey. However, 40 percent of the respondents do not share a willingness to work more and harder for the sake of their organizations success; 30 percent do not have a feeling of pride that they are working at the particular enterprise; and if the chance arose, 55 percent of the respondents would change jobs if they were offered higher pay elsewhere. This group of workers can be classied provisionally as weakly motivated workers from the standpoint of the enterprise (about half of the respondents belong to this group), and its proportion has increased slightly over the past few years. This makes it possible to suggest that peoples attitudes toward their jobs in a particular enterprise have become more pragmatic. Peoples sense of corporate solidarity, which was largely based on the collectivism characteristic of enterprises in the Soviet era, is increasingly giving way to individualistic motives: it is better to work where the pay is better and there are chances for advancement and success. Workers place a much higher value on their work as such rather than on a specic enterprise. Among highly motivated workers we are more likely to nd enterprise managers and entrepreneurs, whereas among those who are weakly motivated we nd more white- and blue-collar workers. Specialists are more likely to be found among those who are proud of their enterprises and willing to work more, but, to almost the same extent as all other workers, they are prepared to change jobs if they are offered a higher-paying one. By way of a conclusion. Summarizing the results of what we have discussed, we can make a number of general conclusions concern-

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ing the work orientations that characterize the present stage in the rise and development of the labor market. While work occupies an important place in peoples lives, for the majority it is still not the dominant value. Family, leisure time, rest, and friends are the spheres to which people would like to devote more time. The pragmatic attitude toward work, that is, work seen solely as a way to earn money, is, as before, quite widespread. When it comes to the sphere of work activity, high pay and guaranteed employment remain the leading values. This is a completely expected result. In talking about their main goals in life, half of the respondents (53 percent) specically listed the goal of taking care of their families welfare in terms of nances and possessions. At the same time, the improved situation in the labor market increases the importance of other motives such as the content of work activity (an interesting job, the opportunity to use ones natural abilities and acquired knowledge) and the conditions necessary for professional and career growth. When workers, especially younger ones and those who have a higher education, assess their work, certain aspects of it are becoming very important, such as success in professional and career growth, factors that can ensure high earnings and steady pay, and, in the broadest sense, a more competitive position in the labor market. Peoples motives concerning working at a particular enterprise have changed noticeably. Workers are becoming less attached psychologically to their enterprises. They are more oriented toward individual achievements than toward the success of their enterprise. At the same time, corporate solidarity and a sense of belonging to the collective still play quite an important role in peoples motives of work activity. It is just that the motive of co-participation is changing in content compared with the 1990s, when belonging to a given enterprise was very often linked to habit and to the difculty of nding some other job, as well as the fact that working at the specic enterprise or organization afforded the opportunity to engage in other kinds of activity that yielded a high income. The sense of corporate solidarity at the beginning of the twenty-rst century, in our opinion, has

MARCHAPRIL 2008 31

a different basis. The surveys have shown that the amount of pay has less inuence on a persons afliation with an enterprise than does the set of social benets that the worker receives there (e.g., medical service, foreign language training, etc.).4 For this reason, enterprises and rms that are implementing various social programs are doing so not only to attract qualied workers but also to instill a sense of corporate solidarity in their workers, an orientation not only toward personal achievement but also toward the success of the whole enterprise. The results of the latest survey have shown that for a substantial portion of the respondents, self-employment and entrepreneurship have become increasingly attractive. An orientation toward working for myself and working as a hired employee are almost equally prevalent at present. In actuality, however, the proportion of selfemployed people stands at only 8 percent or so, and this gure has not increased in the past few years; this attests that peoples desire to engage in small and medium-size business are greatly underutilized. The results of the present survey, like those of other surveys on the same topic, show that an ongoing process in the country is shaping work orientations that characterize a labor market under conditions of economic growth, although this process is not affecting all of the different categories of workers in equal measure. In our opinion, managers and some specialists, people who live in large cities, and young people are exhibiting more up-to-date postmaterialistic work attitudes. Along with earning good pay and having a reliable job, it is equally important to them to have opportunities to advance and achieve success, to have work that is responsible and interesting, as well as motives reecting the social importance of their work and the opportunity to provide help to other people. The people in this group are less afraid of losing their jobs and they favorably rate to their chances of nding another equally suitable job. As people who are self-employed see it, the value of work is associated not only with the amount of pay it affords but also by the opportunity to work independently. For this subgroup, not so much importance attaches to guarantees of employment, assess-

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ment of the work from the standpoint of its content, and the social signicance of the work and opportunities for advancement; what is important are motives of achievement, as expressed in the term success in ones activity. As before, the majority of blue-collar workers, white-collar workers who do not have a special education, and people who live in small towns are afraid they might lose their jobs, and, moreover, they do not rate their chances of nding another suitable job very highly. For them, therefore, the especially important aspects of their work include guarantees of employment and adequately high earnings, while the content of the work, professional growth, and the opportunity to allocate their work time as they see t, are less important. The results of the present survey have made it possible to show new elements in peoples attitudes toward work, factors that are characteristic of the present stage of labor market formation in Russia. However, the value of this survey specically, which was carried out in the framework of an international program of comparative research, is that it makes it possible to compare the Russian results with the results of studies in other countries. These are rst and foremost postcommunist countries that are also experiencing the rise and development of new work relations; and, second, they are countries with a developed market economy. But that is a subject for another article. Notes
1. The empirical base of the survey consists of the survey data from a sample set of the population consisting of 1,605 people. The sample is representative of the Russian population in terms of sex, age, education, and type of community. 2. For example, see V. Gimpelson and R. Kapeliushnikov, eds., Nestandartnaia zaniatost v rossiiskoi ekonomike [Nonstandard Employment in the Russian Economy] (Moscow, 2006), pp. 2337. 3. Z. Kupriianova and L. Khakhulina, Predprinimatelskaia deiatelnost kak osnovnaia i dopolnitelnaia rabota [Entrepreneurial Activity as Main Job and Supplementary Job], Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: Ekonomicheskie i sotsialnye peremeny, 1998, no. 2, pp. 2229. 4. V. Iadov et al., eds., Stanovlenie trudovykh otnoshenii v postsovetskoi Rossii [The Rise and Development of Labor Relations in Post-Soviet Russia] (Moscow: Academic Project, 2004), p. 228.