Russian Professionals: Specifics of Jobs and of Human Potential

Occupation: Leading Researcher; Professor-researcher
Affiliation:
Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Journal name

Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya

Edition

Issue 10

Pages

71-83

Abstract

The jobs of professionals in modern Russia are extremely heterogeneous and differentiated not only by industry, but also by opportunities they offer their employees, as well as by requirements for the knowledge, experience and personal characteristics of them. Because of this, not all the jobs of professionals can be described as forming structural prerequisites for the emergence of the Russian middle class — there are no more than two-thirds of them even without accounting for income. The key factor defining access to high-quality jobs with relatively high wages, observance of labor rights, career prospects and professional growth is the human potential of workers (level of education, work experience, personal characteristics etc.). This allows characterize Russian society (in its mass population part) as fundamentally meritocratic. However, the resource of social networks currently has almost the same significance for access to the top quality jobs in Russia demonstrating serious limitations for such a definition even in relation to mass population, as well as demotivation threat for human potential accumulation with a significant part of professionals. The lack of incentives to accumulate knowledge and skills for them is also aggravated by the fact that most of their jobs in Russia currently do not imply updating knowledge, advanced training or use of education or practical experience acquired by employees earlier. In general, although the Russian economy is currently creating incentives to build-up human potential of professionals, these incentives are limited, not always monetized and clearly insufficient to further the use of practices increasing their human potential.

Keywords

professionals, human capital, human potential, social structure, professional structure, knowledge economy, jobs

Acknowledgment

The article is supported by the RFBR project 19-29-07172.

Received

28.06.2020

Publication date

18.12.2020

Number of characters

33239

Cite

GOST	Tikhonova N. Russian Professionals: Specifics of Jobs and of Human Potential // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2020. – Issue 10 C. 71-83 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250010300-3-1-en (circulation date: 25.09.2023). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250010300-3
MLA	Tikhonova, Natalia "Russian Professionals: Specifics of Jobs and of Human Potential." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 10 (2020):71-83. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250010300-3
APA	Tikhonova N. (2020). Russian Professionals: Specifics of Jobs and of Human Potential. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (10), pp.71-83 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250010300-3

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