Economic mobility trajectories of the Russian population： The experience of the last two decades

This paper is to study the economic mobility trajectories of the Russian population in the last two decades, each of which has brought about both negative shocks and broadening of the opportunity horizons for people＇s economic advancement. The information base of the research is provided by the data of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey （RLMS） for the period of 1994-2008. The investigated period Russia clearly falls into two sub-periods-the 1990s and the 2000s： The first one is characterized by sharp shifts towards impoverishment of the population and growth of economic inequality; the second one-by considerable masses of people overcoming poverty with a still high level of economic inequality. The results indicate the following The proportion of the adult population who have been chronically poor during the whole contemporary history of Russia proves to be twice as little as the proportion of those who have been “chronically non-poor”. However, both groups in total have not constituted the majority, since the majority have been migrating between the extremes of persistent well-being and ill-being during this period with the stream of those coming out of poverty prevailing in numbers.