Maternity capital has supported numerous families in regions across the country, helping people solve their housing problems. At the same time, many people have not accessed these funds, as the programme is quite limited. Maternity capital is not very useful when buying an apartment in the city, as it does not go very far, and two other options for using it – towards children’s education or the mother’s pension – are longer-term issues, noted Elena Gorina, Senior Research Fellow at the HSE’s Institute for Social Development Studies / Center for Studies of Income and Living Standards, during the XVI April International Academic Conference at HSE.

Russia’s current demographic dynamics seem to be positive. Life expectancy is growing, and the population is growing, not only by means of migration from other post-Soviet countries, but also by natural increase, even if it is not big yet. At the same time, researchers assess the near demographic future with moderate optimism, which is mostly due to the forming age structure of the population, said Anatoly Vishnevsky, Director of the HSE Institute of Demography, in his report.

In an environment where the natural-resources growth model is exhausted, human capital becomes the Russian economy's key competitive advantage. The problem of how the state, business and citizens can develop and invest in it was the main theme for the plenary discussion 'Social Policy Priorities' which took place on 7 April at the HSE's XVI April International Confernce on Modernizing the Economy and Society.

Consumerist culture, the marital market, mass media and the entertainment industry all impose stringent standards on the female body—it has to be sexy, healthy and thin. Young women’s obsession with the slim body ideal supported by social networks can indicate serious neurotic disorders. Some online pro-anorexia groups of high school and college students romanticise excessive weight loss and take pride in using their willpower to suppress their appetite, found researchers Darya Litvina and Polina Ostroukhova of the HSE branch in St. Petersburg.

The age profile of marriage in Russia is changing. A growing number of people are getting married for the first time above the age of 25. Remarriages have also shifted along the time axis, which indicates a change in matrimonial habits. Early marriages have become less popular and the average age of men and women getting married has increased, says Sergei Zakharov, deputy director of the HSE Institute of Demography.

Russia is entering a period of decline in first marriages. The 1990s generation now reaching marrying age is not numerous; and in addition, people now tend to marry at a later age. However, the upcoming decline in marriages is nothing new—Russia experienced a similar situation both thirty and fifty years ago, according to Sergei Zakharov, Deputy Director of the HSE's Institute of Demography.

In choosing a field for further studies, high school students are influenced by their peers, among other factors. For example, a high school student interested in technology among a class of peers who are not so good at physics may perceive it as a competitive advantage, increasing the likelihood of their choice of a technical field for a career, according to Andrey Zakharov, Deputy Head of the International Laboratory for Education Policy Analysis at the HSE's Graduate School of Education, and Elizaveta Chernenko, Research Fellow of the same laboratory.

Even today, ages-old folk culture can serve as a basis for collective identity by bringing together people who share this interest and underlying values, as evidenced by Russia's folk heritage movement. According to Rostislav Kononenko, Senior Lecturer at the HSE's Department of General Sociology, and Evgenia Karpova, Master's student at the HSE, the folk heritage movement in Russia is driven by urban intellectuals working to preserve and promote authentic folk culture.

For most Russians, their first experience of cohabitation is as a precursor to marriage. Younger Russians, however, pursue a variety of matrimonial strategies, which often include cohabitation as an alternative to official marriage, according to Ekaterina Mitrofanova, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE's Institute of Demography, and Alyona Artamonova, Bachelor student at the HSE's Faculty of Social Sciences.

The mania for a slim body and a phobia of obesity, an obsession with their bodies, constant reflection about their looks and following the ideals of ‘model’ slenderness are the specifics of body culture in the consumerist society, which are widespread among young people, according to Yana Krupets and Nadezhda Nartova, researchers at the HSE Centre for Youth Studies in St. Petersburg.

Life expectancy among Russians has been increasing over recent decades. However this is more recovery than growth – making up for previous declines. Mortality rates fell in the same areas that previously accounted for their growth in the late 20th, early 21st centuries – cardiovascular disease, and external causes of death: murder, suicide, alcohol poisoning and car accidents, according to senior academic researchers at the HSE’s Institute of Demography Evgeny Andreev, Ekaterina Kvasha, and Tatyana Kharkova.

For the first time since the 2010 heat wave in Moscow, demographers have estimated the effects of abnormal heat, wildfires and air pollution on morbidity and mortality. Extreme heat in Moscow in the summer of 2010 caused nearly 11,000 additional deaths from diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems and respiratory and kidney conditions, according to a group of researchers including Tatyana Kharkova and Ekaterina Kvasha of the HSE Institute of Demography, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, MosEconomMonitoring, and Swedish researchers.