Income inequality, subjective perception and impact on psychosocial well-being of the population

Purpose of research. The work is devoted to the study of socio-economic differentiation in Russia and its impact on the financial situation of the population, its subjective perception, as well as on the psychosocial well-being of individuals. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are to be solved: clustering of regions of the Russian Federation, based on socio-economic indexes; studying the interrelation between the level of socio-economic development of the region and the financial situation of residents; studying the interrelation between the level of socio-economic development of the region and the subjective perception by individuals of their financial situation; studying the interrelation between the level of socio-economic development of the region and the psychosocial well-being of individuals.

Materials and methods. The information base of the study includes: regional data, published by the State Committee on Statistics in the digest “Russian Federation Regions”, household survey data “Russian monitoring of the economic situation and health of the population HSE” (RLMS-HSE). Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Higher School of Economics is a representative socio-economic survey of Russian households, in which the content structure of the used questionnaires meets the standard, adopted in the world practice.

The study uses the following methods: cluster analysis (k-means method), statistical groupings, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney statistical tests.

Results. The study showed that:

– the Russian Federation regions are very heterogeneous in terms of socio-economic development – specific indicators for the regions may differ significantly. It should be taken into account in the study of any social and economic problems, including the problems of income inequality;

– Russian regions can be divided into four clusters. Analysis of the petal diagram of clusters made it possible to reveal their features and give them generalized characteristics. The first cluster includes regions with very high investment, fixed assets and GRP per capita. The second cluster includes regions with an average level of development. The third cluster includes regions with a high level of development. The fourth cluster includes depressive regions;

– There is a clear correlation between the level of socio-economic development of the region of residence and the objective financial situation of residents: the incomes of respondents, living in the leading regions are significantly higher than the incomes of respondents of other clusters; the incomes of respondents, living in depressed regions are lower than the incomes of respondents of other clusters;

– Individuals’ perception of their financial situation and their concerns are practically the same in all clusters and do not correlate with the level of socio-economic development of the region of residence;

– The level of economic development of the region of residence does not have a significant direct impact on psychosocial well-being – individuals from different clusters feel almost equally satisfied with life and almost equally happy.

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