Combining study and work has become a widespread phenomenon in Russia. According to the national monitoring of graduate employment, about 53% of full-time bachelor and specialist degree holders worked for at least one month during their studies. The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of combining study and work and an assessment of their contribution to individual wages and the probability of employment one year after graduation. The results suggest that regular employment during the academic year is more common than temporary employment during the summer break. On average, combining study and work increases the probability of employment one year after graduation by 16-19% and brings a wage premium of 14%. However, there are significant differences in the size of the effect depending on the characteristics of student employment and educational factors. The combination of studying and working in the final years of university has a larger effect on wages and the probability of employment. There are significant cross effects between the fact of combining study and work with fields of study and the degree of university selectivity. The observed effects suggest that a special model of transition from study to work has emerged in Russia, in which professional career entry precedes graduation. Moreover, the results of the study show that there is a strong complementarity between education and combining study with work. Combining study and work does not yield significant returns when the quality of education is low, while success in the labour market is achieved through a combination of different educational factors and not solely work experience.

We examine the gender wage gap in Kazakhstan over the period 2011–2019. It was found to be persistent and stable during this period at around 30

This study provides new evidence of the gender wage gap among recent university graduates at different stages of their early career. Using a unique administrative dataset from Russia, we estimate the gender wage gap at means and across wage distribution for a cohort of 2018 university graduates during the first 4 years after graduation. We explore the contribution of educational and job factors to the explanation of the gap. Although a substantial gap of 14% is already present at labour market entry, it is two times smaller compared to the gap for the overall working population. Eighty five percent of the entry wage gap can be explained with differences in fields of study, work experience, and job characteristics. More than 4 years after graduation, the gender wage gap experiences a dramatic increase, reaching 26%. Only 28% of the resulting gap can be explained by the observed characteristics, including industrial and occupational segregation. The size of the gap varies drastically in different parts of the wage distribution, suggesting the existence of a strong glass ceiling effect from the very beginning of graduate careers. The rapidly expanding early career gender wage gap with a growing unexplained component suggests that education policies may have limited ability to promote gender equality in the labour market.

Purpose The article aims to describe the role of training and examines the impact on the wages of university and college graduates. Design/methodology/approach We use nationwide administrative data on university and college graduates in 2019. The population includes 1.3 million observations, of which 222,000 (∼16%) received training after graduation from an educational institution (from July 2019 to 2022). We used OLS and the “difference-in-differences” methods to estimate the returns to training. Estimates obtained using the DID method turned out to be several times smaller because they consider unobserved characteristics (abilities). Findings We obtained several key findings. First, the participation of graduates in training is high, despite their recent education. Second, undergoing training is conditional on the existence of wage returns. The results show a wage premium of 17.8% (OLS method) and 2.0% (DID method). Third, graduates from nonselective universities (with low state exam score) try to participate more actively in training to acquire missing knowledge and skills. The wage premium for graduates from nonselective universities is 19.1% (OLS method) and 5.1% (DID method). Fourth, there is a high return to training for graduates from socially relevant fields (education and healthcare), where training is regular and mandatory. Originality/value This paper is one of the first to estimate the involvement and returns to training for graduates using nationwide administrative data in Russia.

Economic and sociological research that touches upon the determinants of alcohol consumption is mostly centered on the traditional factors of human capital (e.g., education). While much attention is given to education as a valid instrument to reduce alcohol misuse, less is given to the impact of non-cognitive skills. Data are collected from a nationally representative Russian panel survey, 2016–2018. We estimate a random-effects probit model for the probability of abstinence and a random-effects tobit model with a Heckman correction for the volume of alcohol consumption. Non-cognitive skills are consistent predictors of drinking in Russia. In both genders, conscientiousness and extraversion have strong connections to the probability and the volume of alcohol consumption, while openness to experience and neuroticism only affect the volume. The estimates for education differ substantially when the Big Five variables are excluded from the model, which suggests that a major part of the effect of education on alcohol consumption patterns may be mediated through non-cognitive skills. Although educational interventions are often seen as a method of solving excessive drinking problems, introducing personality traits into the analysis raises the question of the effectiveness of such interventions.

Despite high levels of morbidity and mortality, as well as the widespread availability of domestic vaccines, Russia demonstrated significantly low rates of vaccination throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This research explores vaccination intentions before the start of the immunisation campaign and the consequent uptake in Russia after the introduction of mandatory vaccination policy in certain industries and proof-of-immunisation for social activities. Using a nationally representative panel dataset, we analyse factors behind individual vaccination decisions using binary and multinomial logistic regressions. Special attention is given to the effect of employment in industries with vaccine mandates and personal factors which determine individual "nudgeability" to vaccination (e.g., personality traits, beliefs, vaccine alertness, self-perceived vaccine availability etc.). Our results show that 49 per cent of the population received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine by autumn 2021 after the introduction of mandatory vaccination. Vaccination intentions before the rollout of the nationwide immunisation campaign are correlated with the consequent attitudes and uptake, although the prediction is not perfect. 40 percent of vaccine refusers eventually got vaccinated, while 16 percent of vaccine supporters turned into refusers, revealing the lack of promotion of vaccine safety and effectiveness. To a large extent, vaccination refusal and hesitance are explained by vaccine alertness. Vaccine mandates significantly increased the uptake in several affected industries, especially education. These results offer important insights for designing information policy, relevant for future vaccination campaigns.

More than one-third of Russia’s labour force has a university diploma. With rapid massification, higher education quality turns into one of the key determinants of graduates’ earnings, at least at labour market entry. This paper focuses on two measures of educational quality (level of university selectivity and honors degree) and analyzes their association with graduates’ success in the Russian labour market. Using nationwide administrative data, this paper explores early-career labour market outcomes of Russian graduates with bachelor’s and specialist’s degree. The results suggest the existence of a significant wage premium associated with graduating from more selective universities. The observed positive effect consists of three components: individual abilities, social environment (i.e., networking possibilities and peer-effects), and quality of training. Having an honors diploma is also significantly positively related to early career outcomes, contrary to common belief.

Vaccination is the main tool available to handle the COVID-19 pandemic globally. Though no vaccine is proven to be 100% effective, vaccination secures against getting seriously ill and dying from the disease. Russia announced the development of its first domestic vaccine back in August 2020 and launched the nationwide immunization campaign at the beginning of 2021. Despite these achievements, as of mid-October 2021, only 36% of the population got at least one shot of the vaccine. Massive vaccination hesitancy and refusal pose a great threat to public health and postpone social and economic recovery. Using nationally representative data from the general adult population of Russia, this study explores the scope of vaccination hesitancy and refusal as well as the determinants of vaccination attitudes. The results suggest that only 45% of the Russian population demonstrated positive attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccination prior to the launch of a nationwide vaccination program. We analyze a wide array of demographic, socio-economic, and health-related factors in relation to vaccination intentions and explore the deep-rooted causes of vaccination reluctance by looking at personality traits, religiosity, and trust. The obtained results are vital for designing policy measures to promote vaccination.

Информационный бюллетень посвящен анализу важнейших навыков студентов российских вузов: оцениваются уровень владения иностранными языками и цифровые компетенции. Рассмотрены масштабы распространения этих навыков по федеральным округам, направлениям подготовки, уровням образования и категориям вузов. Исследование основано на данных опроса студентов бакалавриата, специалитета и магистратуры, проведенного в рамках проекта «Мониторинг экономики образования» в 2019/2020 учебном году. Анализ опирается на самооценку студентов в отношении качества приобретенных ими компетенций.

This paper analyses the determinants and consequences of horizontal job-education mismatches, an increasingly relevant topic in debates about education and labour markets. This issue reflects the articulation of educational fields and occupations in the labour market. We evaluate the determinants of job-education mismatches and their impact on salaries of university graduates using comprehensive and representative national data for Russia. The study is based in graduates' assessment and statistical analyses. We find that one-third of graduates in Russia work in a job that is not related to their field of study. Moreover, graduates from fields that either generate more general human capital (social sciences, business, law, services) or where low pay is common (agriculture) are more likely to be in that situation. On the contrary, graduates from fields that generate specific human capital (e.g.: medicine) are considerably more likely to be matched. We find that mismatches negatively affect the earnings of university graduates and the higher the degree of mismatch, the higher the penalty for the mismatch. The study depicts that mismatch is penalized in the majority of fields except for low-paid ones (e.g.: agriculture).

Though master’s programmes are rapidly gaining attention from students, evidence concerning the labor market returns to master’s degree remains scarce. There is a widespread opinion that Russian employers can barely distinguish between graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degree making it unreasonable to pursue a graduate degree. This paper contradicts this opinion. Based on a unique administrative dataset about employment of Russian HEI graduates in 2020, this study reveals a significantly positive association between master’s degree acquisition and labour market outcomes one year after graduation. Master’s degree increases probability of employment by 3—8% in male sample and by 10—16% in female sample, respectively. Moreover, graduate degree is associated with a wage premium of 5—21% for females and 2—11% for males. Despite a short period of time passed after the Bologna reform, Russian labour market encourages having a graduate degree, though the size of the premium varies drastically between fields of study and types of university.

This study introduces a comparative analysis of the gender wage gap decomposition methods with the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) data for 2018. To decompose the differences in average wages, approaches based on the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition are used. Apart from the mean wages, the study focuses on other distribution statistics. Using the quantile regressions, the wage gap between men and women is decomposed for the distribution parameters such as median, lower and upper deciles. The decomposition estimates of conditional and unconditional (based on recentered influence functions) quantile regressions are compared.

Non-cognitive skills, shaped by genetics and early socialization experiences, are an important component of human capital that affects a number of social and economic outcomes throughout the life course, including individual educational choices. This study is focused on the contribution of non-cognitive skills to higher education trajectories: intention to study in college, probability of going to college, major choice, and college selectivity. The study uses data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics (RLMSHSE) for 2011 and 2016–2018. Non-cognitive skills are measured using the Big Five personality traits and locus of control, the two most prominent psychological concepts in the field. Educational intentions of adolescents aged 15–19 and past educational choices of young people aged 23–29 are analyzed using probit models and multinomial and ordinal logistic regressions. The psychological traits of openness to experience, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and internal locus of control are found to be the most powerful factors affecting educational intentions and choices, but results vary as a function of gender and socioeconomic characteristics.

Информационный бюллетень посвящен изучению фактической и зарегистрированной безработицы, положению безработных на российском рынке труда в сравнении с трудоустроенными работниками.В аналитическом материале проводится анализ численности

The article presents a review of literature systematizing findings on the contribution of non-cognitive skills to higher education choice-making. The concept of higher education choice-making in this paper embraces the decision to embark on a college degree, the probability of successful degree completion, the choice of academic discipline, and other related aspects. A priority focus is given to publications in economics since the economic approach differs a lot from approaches in other social sciences. In addition, the article explores the methodological characteristics of non-cognitive skills research in economics. The results of literature analysis point to the relevance of non-cognitive skills in explaining individual educational choices and allow drawing some inferences for education policy.

Рожкова Ксения Викторовна - младший научный сотрудник лаборатории исследований рынка труда факультета экономических наук Национального исследовательского университета «Высшая школа экономики». E-mail: krozhkova@hse.ru (контактное лицо для переписки) Рощин Сергей Юрьевич - кандидат экономических наук, заведующий лабораторией исследований рынка труда факультета экономических наук Национального исследовательского университета «Высшая школа экономики». E-mail: sroshchin@hse.ru Адрес: 109028, Москва, Покровский б-р, 11. Представлен обзор литературы, систематизирующий данные о вкладе некогнитивных навыков в выбор индивидуальной траектории в высшем образовании. Под индивидуальной траекторией понимаются решение о поступлении в университет, вероятность его окончания, выбор направления обучения и другие смежные тематики. Преимущественное внимание уделено экономическим работам ввиду отличия экономического подхода от подходов других социальных наук. Кроме того, в статье обсуждаются методологические особенности исследования некогнитивных навыков в экономике. На основании анализа литературы сделано заключение о релевантности некогнитивных навыков для объяснения индивидуального образовательного выбора и сформулирован ряд выводов для образовательной политики.

Non-cognitive skills are widely recognized in economics as an important factor that affects various individual outcomes, including wages and employment. Non-cognitive skills can also serve as an additional explanation for the gender wage gap. This paper disentangles the complex relationship between non-cognitive skills and the gender wage gap based on Russian data. Data are collected from a nationally representative Russian survey RLMS-HSE and include detailed information on individuals aged 20–60. We use the Big Five factor model, locus of control, and attitudes towards risk to represent non-cognitive skills. Our findings suggest that non-cognitive skills account for up to 8 per cent of the gender wage gap, although significant variation is observed with different measures of personality and across the wage distribution. We conclude that personality traits are noteworthy but not exhaustive factors in the gender wage gap, and there are other unobserved factors which researchers have yet to identify.

Информационный бюллетень посвящен оценке движения рабочей силы и рабочих мест на российском рынке труда в 2009-2020 гг.Для анализа были использованы агрегированные данные Федеральной службы государственной статистики для средних и крупных предприятий и дезагрегированные данные общероссийской базы вакансий «Работа в России» для малых, средних и крупных предприятий.Аналитическая часть информационного бюллетеня содержит результаты анализа таких показателей, как создание и ликвидация рабочих мест, наем и увольнения работников, а также соотношение между перераспределением ра-