Research shows that a third of all drug users in the U.S. actively avoid contracting HIV or hepatitis c. This has more to do with the drug addicts’ efforts than with luck. They are able to steer clear of frightening diagnoses thanks to social roles, solid financial strategies, and their painful experience of losing loved ones to AIDS. Russian drug users, on the other hand, are less careful as concerns the risk of infection, according to research conducted by Peter Meylakhs, Senior Research Fellow with HSE St. Petersburg’s Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, and presented at HSE’s XVI April International Academic Conference.

Values such as religious beliefs impact attitudes towards euthanasia. The more people value independence and autonomy, the higher their approval is of euthanasia. Conversely, conformism and an adherence to traditions are negatively linked to attitudes towards euthanasia, Maxim Rudnev and Alexandra Savelkaeva, researchers at the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness, said at HSE’s XVI April International Academic Conference.

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.

Economic inequality between the Russian regions will manifest itself clearly in the context of the current crisis. While the 2009 crisis passed almost painlessly for regional budgets, the situation today is quite different. The regions will be forced to look for anti-crisis strategies in the context of continuously decreasing oil revenues, said Natalia Zubarevich, Leading Research Fellow at the HSE Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards, in her presentation on ‘Crises in Russia: Regional Perspective’ as part of the XVI HSE April International Academic Conference.

The broader the ethnic diversity, the greater the level of tolerance to people from other cultures. Multiculturalism has a positive effect on societal development in Russian regions. This is evidenced by research into the relationship between heterogeneity and socio-psychological capital of personality, that was carried out by Leading Research Fellow at the International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research Alexander Tatarko. The report was presented at the XVI April International Academic Conference.

The number of bankruptcies in the real economy is growing rapidly. Companies at risk include car manufacturers, agriculture, and metallurgy. Companies are being forced to leave markets due to decreasing demand and unbearable borrowing costs, said Anastasia Mogilat at the XVI HSE April International Academic Conference.

Social policy challenges and losses; Russians are not Europeans; Why parents in Moscow hate the USE; Defence attorneys' strategies in dealing with law enforcement agencies; Migrants in Moscow: myths and reality; Why switching to 'effective contracts' for school teachers does not work—these were among the most interesting papers from the HSE's XV April Conference, according to Opec.ru.

Reading is not a popular pastime for young people today. Classic and modern literature often lose out to fantasy fiction, which is often made into films and videogames and allows young readers to become viewers and participants of an alternate reality, according to Lyubov Borusiak, Associate Professor of the HSE School of Integrated Communications, who presented the findings from her study of young readers' preferences at the HSE's XVI April International Academic Conference.

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.

In Russia, demand for law comes primarily from the state rather than from society. The adoption of simple and clear directly effective laws, the expansion of juries and the active use of information technologies could enhance interest on the part of the citizenry in issues of law and law enforcement, noted participants in the plenary session ‘Demand for Law: Factors and Driving Forces’, which was held at the XVI April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development at HSE.

Some university teachers, but not all, are involved in their school's affairs and tend to take its failures personally and celebrate its successes as their own. Some teachers are willing to work weekends, help their colleagues and engage in various extracurricular activities, while others stick firmly to their job descriptions and rarely agree to do anything not expressly stated in their contract. According to Andrey Lovakov, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms, what makes a difference between the former and the latter is the level of commitment to their institution determined by a number of factors.