Tag «IQ»

Immigrants from Central Asia are only partially integrated into life in Moscow and are not using many of the city’s resources and opportunities. Their way of life and living standards differ drastically from those Russians who live and work in the Russian capital. Immigrants from former Soviet republics work on weekdays and do household chores or socialise among themselves on weekends, and thus have difficulty adjusting to life in a big city, according to a study by Ekaterina Demintseva and Vera Peshkova published in the HSE's Demoscope Weekly.

The number of foreign specialists working in Russia has been declining rapidly over the last several years. These specialists often perceive Russian capitalism as something temporary that depends on oil prices. Under such conditions, expats are not likely able to make a serious contribution to the modernization of the Russian economy, but their view of local realities is nonetheless valuable for understanding the processes that hinder economic development, researchers from HSE’s Laboratory for Comparative Analysis of Post-Socialist Development Vladimir Karacharovskiy, Ovsey Shkaratan and Gordey Yastrebov concluded from a research study.

The high turnover of researchers and lecturers at universities cannot be fully explained merely by low pay or a lack of opportunities for self-fulfillment. Sometimes, young people choose an academic career for reasons other than an interest in research; they may take a postgraduate course to escape military service, to defer employment, or to meet society's expectations, according to Anastasia Sizykh, Research Fellow of the HSE's Institute of Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK).

It’s time for doctors to actively control discussions of self-treatment over the Internet. Unqualified opinions of uninformed people can mislead many participants of Internet communities, and doctors’ comments about online prescriptions would help users to make right decisions and could even save their lives. Elena Tarasenko, Deputy Head of the HSE Department of Health Care Administration and Economy, has studied the content of web communities dedicated to self-treatment in social networks.

Parental social and occupational status plays a significant role in children's career success. This is mainly due to the help that children get from their parents in pursuing opportunities to become highly paid professionals in Russia, argues Alexey Bessudnov, Research Fellow at the HSE's Centre for Advanced Studies.

States are forming alliances to stand against the dictates of international capital and also to successfully attract this capital to their markets, argues the head of HSE’s Department of International Affairs, Maxim Bratersky, in his report 'Political Functions of Regional Trade Agreements'.

Russia faces a situation where orphans, rather than potential adoptive parents, have to go through a selection process. To change this, adoptive families should become professional, while orphanages need to be downsized and open to the community, says Svetlana Biryukova, Research Fellow of the Centre for Studies of Income and Living Standards.

Despite the wide income gap between the rich and poor in Russia, their basic values and attitudes are not dissimilar. However, there are indications of an impending rift, says Svetlana Mareeva, Associate Professor of the HSE's Sub-department of Socio-Economic Systems and Social Policy, based on her findings from a survey of poor Russians.