Tikhonova N.E. The Health and Age Structure of Russian Workers: Tradition as Opposed to Change. The Journal of social policy studies, 2018, Vol. 16, Issue 2, pp. 311-326.

Текст статьи на сайте журнала URL: https://jsps.hse.ru/article/view/7831/8626 (дата обращения 04.09.2018)

Abstract

Based on the data of 25th wave of RLMS HSE (2016), the article considers such an important element of workers’ human potential as their physiological resource, which is operationalized through indicators of age and health (including presence of disabilities, 23 types of chronic diseases and self-assessments of health). The traditions in this area, in particular - preferences in choosing the occupation, and changes in these traditions are examined. It is shown that the age structure of Russian workers traditionally reproduce itself and practically coincides with the age structure of the working population of the country in general, which does not allow to state deterioration of the human potential of workers in this respect in recent decades. The myth that young people do not want to become workers is mainly due to the high proportion of informal employment among young workers, which means that a significant proportion of young workers is not accounted for in the statistics. However, during the last years there have been some changes in this regard - among young people under 25 the occupation of the salesperson has actually become more popular than the occupation of worker. It is also shown that Russian workers are a very heterogeneous professional group in terms of their health. While skilled workers are characterized by good health indicators, unskilled manual workers have the worst health indicators of all occupational groups even in their youth; they are also characterized by the most prominent tendency of its further deterioration with age, and this deterioration have a clear gender asymmetry. Judging by the distribution of these trends, they can also be viewed as a kind of tradition. Three groups of workers are defined: 1) completely healthy; 2) with some health problems; 3) having multiple and serious health problems; the estimates of their shares and distribution in different subgroups of workers are presented. The final conclusion of the article is that the physiological resource of qualified workers in Russia is now sufficient to fulfill the tasks that they can face in the event of the country's entry into the path of intensive technological restructuring of the economy. At the same time, due to emerging changes in this field, serious challenges for social policy are being formed, and without an adequate response it is impossible to ensure the country's sustainable socioeconomic development in the medium term.