RUSSET study

16 september 2005

INTRODUCTION

The RUSSET [Russian Socio-Economic Transition] Panel is a representative longitudinal study of Russian households. The interviews were held on a yearly basis from 1993 till 1999, which is the period just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During that period many social, political, economical, and cultural changes have occurred that influenced all Russians. Russia is in this respect a sort of social experiment which makes social change studies possible that otherwise would take decades of research. This was realized by the Dutch prof. dr. Willem Saris and his Russian colleague prof. dr. Vladimir Andreenkov early enough to get the funding for a panel study on living conditions in Russia. The study was funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research for a period of seven years.  

The study provides information on among others household composition, satisfaction, employment, earnings, health and political participation. Because of the Dutch funding, famous Dutch scientist participated in the study. The RUSSET panel enjoys the knowledge of well-known Dutch experts in the fields that were covered in the study; among others prof. dr. Willem Saris who is famous for his research on questionnaire development and structural equations modeling; prof. dr. Ruut Veenhoven who's internationally known for his research on happiness and who has one of the world's largest database on happiness studies; and prof dr. Bernard van Praag who is famous for his research on poverty and welfare.

We encourage everybody to use the data, whenever possible. Since the topics covered are very broad there should be something of interest for every body. In addition, this study also contains many multitrait multimethod and split ballot experiments that provide new ways to explore the data. If you consider using the RUSSET data, then please be so kind to make a reference if it results in an article or something like that. And in any case, could you inform us where, how, and for what purpose you will use (have used) the data. 

On this site you can find all background information of the Russian Socio-Economic Transition panel study. Among others information about the sample design, survey design, and the participants. In addition, all questionnaires and individual data can be downloaded, and for many of the variables in the study there are trend tables available online. Finally we have done our utter best to develop this website. Nevertheless, errors are expected to occur. If you note one, do report it to the webmaster. Also, we are survey researchers, not website developers, so our main interest is in the quality of the collected data. That is what where our effort has been invested in, consequentially, errors on this site are not indicative of the quality of the study. 

Background

After the election of 1988, Gorbachev was elected president of the USSR. Confronted with deteriorating economic conditions, Gorbachev introduced policies whose guiding principles glasnost and perestroika were intended to liberalize and revitalize Soviet socialism and society. The changes succeeded in democratizing Soviet politics but produced few economic benefits and unleashed long-suppressed ethnic conflicts and separatist movements. The imminent signing of a treaty transferring many powers to the republics led hard-liners in Gorbachev's government to attempt (August 1991) to overthrow him. In the aftermath Gorbachev aligned himself with Boris Yeltsin and other reformers and resigned from the Communist party. He even agreed to greater power sharing with the republics and tried to prevent the USSR's disintegration but met with little success. The agreement (December 8, 1991) by Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Russia's expropriation of union ministries and property meant the end of the USSR as it existed for 74 years. The end of the communistic regime in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics paved the way for a transition of Russia to a democracy and a free market economy. It is within the context of these transitions that this study was initiated. 

In 1990 the Russian sociologist prof. dr. Vladimir Andreenkov suggested in a discussion with prof. dr. Willem Saris that Russia, one of the largest and potentially most powerful countries of the world, could be seen as a social science laboratory because the changes in Russia happened so rapidly. Shifts in public behavior and public consciousness usually happen under influence of significant changes in social, economic and political environment, but such changes are normally going very slowly. Therefore the social scientists are limited in their studies of change by the long duration of social processes. Russia is a unique case in that sense, because in the nineties of the twentieth century all those processes happen with much higher speed due to the fast transformations in the economic and political system of the country. In such a situation social researchers get a chance to study events and processes in a period of years where otherwise they need decades of observation.

When in 1992 the Dutch Organization for scientific research (NWO) offered the possibility for research in Russia in co-operation with Russian researchers, prof. dr. Willem Saris made a proposal for a panel study. The main idea of this panel was to look at the socio-economic transitions in Russia in the aftermath of the fall of communism, and the consequences of these transitions with respect to changes in people's satisfaction with life in general and specific domains of life in particular. Because the purpose of the study was the evaluation of socio-economic transitions, we have called the panel the Russian Socio-Economic Transition panel or RUSSET panel. A subsidy for this study has been obtained from the Dutch Organization for scientific research (NWO) for a period of 7 years (from 1993 till 1999).

This study could not have become a success without dr. Annette Scherpenzeel and dr. Anna Andreenkova, who both played a major role in the development of the study design, the questionnaire, and the sampling.