Rural Inequality in Divided Russia (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series) - Softcover

'Using materials accumulated in large-scale surveys conducted in the 2000s, as well as an impressive array of Russian- and English-language secondary sources, the author charts the scope, contours, and causes of rural inequality after the Soviet Union. Individual chapters explore dimensions of inequality, ranging from social capital to profession and from gender to location, combining to provide a multifaceted picture of the Russian countryside in recent years. Wegren's overall approach is institutional, and he locates the driving factors of inequality creation in the design of post-Soviet institutions impacting rural life. Although rural inequality in Russia is at its highest level since the Russian Revolution of 1917, Wegren concludes that it is unlikely to be a source of social instability in Russia in the foreseeable future. Summing Up: Recommended.' – D. Rogers, Yale University, CHOICE Magazine, July 2014 Vol. 51 No. 11

This book examines economic and political polarisation in post-Soviet Russia, and in particular analyses the development of rural inequality. It discusses how rural inequality has developed in post-Soviet Russia, and how it differs from the Soviet period, and goes on to look at the factors that affect rural stratification and inequality, using human and social capital, profession, gender, and village location as independent variables. The book uses survey data from rural households and fieldwork in Russia in order to highlight the multiplicity of divisions that act as fault lines in contemporary rural Russia.