Russia's labour market has a growing demand for unskilled migrant workers from other CIS countries. Migrants who have worked in managerial or professional positions in their home countries almost always see their status decline once they move to Russia. In contrast, less skilled workers easily find jobs of similar status in Russia, according to Elena Varshavskaya, Professor of the HSE's Department of Human Resources Management, and Mikhail Denisenko, Deputy Director of the HSE's Institute of Demography

People's lives today are more flexible, while individual biographies – even though they may look like 'games without rules' to an outsider – are in fact carefully designed around personal choices. These are the main themes of a paper by Sergey Zakharov and Ekaterina Mitrofanova published in the monograph Russia and China: Youth in the 21st Century. Although the paper focuses mainly on young Russians' reproductive behavior, its content goes beyond demographics and addresses certain existential aspects, such as non-stereotypical biographies of modern people and their diverse identities, values, ​​and desires

Muscovites who live between the capital’s Ring Road and the Third Ring Road are rooted in their region and, contrary to popular myths, do not try to move into the city centre. In their view, ‘Old Moscow’ is more a territory for rest than a business and residential area. This stereotype is also supported by Moscow’s radial ring structure, which is designed to regulate the influx of people into the city centre, Alexey Levinson said in HSE’s ‘Demoscope Weekly’ journal

Extracurricular activities continue to be popular among Russian youngsters, and most school students attend after-school clubs and classes, including those offered by their own school. Youngsters who are not involved in any after-school activities explain it by not having enough time or not having access to out-of-school programmes which are either non-existent in their community or out of their price range. These are some of the findings of a study by Daniil Alexandrov, Head of the HSE's Research Laboratory of Sociology in Education and Science (St. Petersburg), and Valeria Ivaniushina, Senior Research Fellow of the same Laboratory

Integrating Russia’s academic community into the larger international community, internationalizing Russian academic journals, and improving the quality of publications and research – these are the ultimate priorities of a new project the HSE is participating in called the Russian Science Citation Index. The project is being carried out on Web of Science, a leading global search engine for academic publications. By the end of next year, a national database is to be created that comprises the best Russian journals and publications from the last ten years. The database will undoubtedly become a part of the international publication space

Russian society has a generally low level of trust. Colleagues and neighbours are the only exception – Russians regard them as trustworthy. A trusting attitude towards one's inner circle of acquaintances has a greater effect on life satisfaction than trust in public institutions and people in general, according to Anna Mironova, Research Intern of the HSE’s International Laboratory of Socio-Cultural Research

Young Russians took the Sochi Olympics as a family holiday rather than a state one. Their parents’ nostalgic memories about the 1980 Olympic Games played their role, which were a personal and at the same time a national event for many Russians. Sochi 2014’s promotion as a national holiday worked worse, though. For young people, the excitement in official media was drowned by criticism of the Olympics on the internet, Anna Sanina, Associate Professor at the HSE St. Petersburg Department of State and Municipal Administration, and research assistants Anastasia Kozlova and Olesya Trigolos, found out

Federal and regional maternity benefits such as 'maternal capital', larger child allowances, and other measures introduced since 2007 to improve the country's demography have led to more births, but have not yet contributed to effective fertility rates in Russia. A paper by Sergey Zakharov and Thomas Freyka in the HSE's new Demographic Review journal examines Russia's reproductive trends over the past half-century in an attempt to make projections concerning the future effects of the country's demographic policies

Life scenarios in Russia have changed substantially over the past 50 years; individual biographies are now more diverse, while different life stages, such as going to school, starting a family, getting a job, and retirement, are no longer linear and do not always follow a pre-set sequence. Perhaps the most unpredictable are the life courses of people born in the mid-1970s whose entry into young adulthood coincided with the beginning of market reforms in Russia. Alla Tyndik and Ekaterina Mitrofanova have studied Russians' life courses over the past 85 years

Generally in Russia, being childless is an involuntary situation associated with infertility, age, and being single. However, being childless in Moscow is often a deliberate decision. Aside from a biological inability to bear children, childlessness in Moscow is likely to be associated with higher levels of education, income security, the structure of the family of origin, and certain attitudes, i.e. that having children is not necessary for happiness, according to Svetlana Biryukova, Research Fellow of the HSE's Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards

Children attending Moscow schools who are born to migrants from CIS countries often encounter difficulties adapting to their new environment. In research published in the HSE's online journal Demoscope Weekly, Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, Yulia Florinskaya, Dmitry Poletaev, and Ksenia Doronina argue that educational institutions must help them master the Russian language and to overcome issues arising during the teaching process

Fewer Russians associate relationships between men and women with marriage, and gender roles are moving away from those of husband and wife. Russians still perceive 'the ideal man' and 'the ideal husband' as similar types – the common denominator being the roles of breadwinner and protector. In contrast, ‘the ideal woman' and 'the ideal wife' are two entirely different types. The former must be good-looking above all, while the latter is expected to be loyal, loving, and a good homemaker, according to Yulia Lezhnina, Associate Professor at the HSE's Subdepartment of Socio-Economic Systems and Social Policy