Making Ends Meet in Contemporary Russia: Secondary Employment, Subsidiary Agriculture and Social Networks

Throughout the 1990s, Russian households experienced a dramatic fall in their traditional sources of subsistence: wages and social benefits. Many commentators have argued that households have adopted "survival strategies" that enable them to make ends meet, particularly taking second jobs, growing their own food and calling on the help of family and friends. This text reviews the available data to analyse the forms, scale and incidence of these phenomena. The author finds that so-called "survival strategies" merely represent a continuation of traditional soviet practices. He demonstrates that they disproportionately benefit the better off and that they do not provide a means by which those who have suffered misfortune can compensate for a fall in their earnings. Instead, he illustrates that most Russian households have adapted simply by cutting expenditure rather than by finding new sources of income. The author concludes by arguing that the notion of a "household survival strategy" is inappropriate for the study of post-Soviet society.