Assessing the Relationship Between Russians’ Health Status and their Employment in the Late 2010s

Assessing the Relationship Between Russians’ Health Status and their Employment in the Late 2010s


Karavay A.V.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Senior Researcher; Institute for Social Policy National Research University Higher School of Economics; Senior Researcher, Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russia karavayav@yandex.ru

ID of the Article: 8718


The reported study was funded by RSF, project No. 17-78-20125.


For citation:

Karavay A.V. Assessing the Relationship Between Russians’ Health Status and their Employment in the Late 2010s. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2021. No 7. P. 61-72




Abstract

The article deals with the problems of the influence of individuals’ health status on the probability of their employment. Also, we assessed the effectiveness of various methods of measuring individuals’ health status in sociological surveys. The results of the regression analysis show that there is a statistically significant relationship between a person’s employment and their health status, as well as the feasibility of including health indicators in the corresponding regression models. Optimal in this case is a combination of objective (the presence of disability) and subjective (self-perceived health status) indicators. We demonstrate the place of health status among other factors of employment and the key ones are highlighted, both in general and separately for men and women since the population of the country still retains the ideas of gender social roles characteristic of Russian culture. These roles cause differences in the set of factors that affect the probability of men’s and women’s employment, including considering health status. It is also shown that weak health, even without disability, severely limits individuals’ chances of employment, and this situation has remained unchanged since at least the mid-1990s. At the same time, good health status in comparison with the situation of the mid-2000s has now begun to increase the probability of employment in Russia in comparison with even average health status. At the same time, the elements of a healthy lifestyle associated with a healthy diet and physical activity are still not sufficiently widespread, although there are fewer adepts of bad habits among Russians.


Keywords
Russians’ health status; labor force; healthy lifestyle; employment factors; gender stereotypes

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Content No 7, 2021