The present article contains an analysis of the major areas of social policy in the contemporary Russian Federation.
Keywords: policy, social policy, state policy, Russia.
В данной статье проводится анализ основных направлений социальной политики в Российской Федерации.
Ключевые слова: социальная политика, государственная политика, Россия.
What is social policy?
Social policy represents a set of special measures and activities aimed at sustaining the wellbeing of the state’s population. Social policy is considered an integral part of the internal policy of the state and manifests itself through the state’s social programs and practices, regulating relations in society according to the interests of different social groups.
The basis of social policy consists in providing support to different population groups that are potentially exposed to various risks. The main goal of social policy is considered to be the consolidation of society, the achievement of social harmony and the stabilization of political power.
The main function of social policy is the redistribution of resources to prevent polarization and protect vulnerable segments of the population.
Social policy in the Russian Federation
The construction of the social state in Russia begins with the Constitution of 1993, which legitimised the values of a social state.
The Article 7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that Russian Federation is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions for a worthy life of its people. The same article guarantees that the labour and health of people shall be protected, a guaranteed minimum wages and salaries shall be established, state support shall be ensured to the family, maternity, paternity and childhood, to disabled persons and the elderly. Futhermore, state pensions, allowances and other social security guarantees shall be established.
In the period of 1991–2004 several important reforms took place, completely changing the way social policy was organised in Russia. There have been two stages of creating a social state — legal reglamentation and practical implementation of the measures of social policy.
The Pension Fund of Russia and the Social Insurance Fund were created in 1991 and 1992 respectively. In 2023 these two organizations were united to form the Social Fund of Russia, which combines the functions of the two previous funds.
Throughout the years folowing the Soviet Union’s collapse, a system of funds for medical insuranse was created (1993), a system of social rehabilitation for disabled people was established (1995). In 2001 the pension system was reformed, changing from a distributive system to an accumulative one. In 2004–2006 the monetization of social benefits took place, converting the remaining non-monetary payments into equivalent monetary payments.
In 2009 the European Social Charter was ratified by the Russian Federation. The Charter establishes the basic principles by which the member states of the Council of Europe should guide their social policy and provides legal guarantees of economic and social rights for all people under their jurisdiction. However, from 16 March 2022 the Russian Federation ceased to be a member of the Council of Europe.
Overall, we can see that after the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been an attempt to build a social state aimed to protect the social well-being of its citizens.
However, despite the Constitution proclaiming Russia a social state, the real situation in the country does not fully correspond to the standarts of a social state. In contemporary Russian Federation the following problems in the domain of social policy can be distinguished.
Poverty remains a prominent issue in many of the regions of the Russian Federation. There is a growing disparity between the more and less developed regions of the country, with almost 14 % of the total population living below the poverty line despite many of these people having a permanent job. This can be explained by the fact that social assistance in Russia is aimed at a limited amount of specific groups of population (the disabled, the retired, the war veterans ect) regardless of their income. There is no system of income redistribution between the wealth and the poor, which leads to Russia being one of the countries with the highest level of wealth inequality.
Contemporary Russia can not boast of a high standard of living, which presents an obstacle on the way of increasing the birth rate. While the state is actively trying to stimulate the birthrate, it is failing to guarantee the sufficient support of the families throughout the period of bringing up the children.
Moreover, the inconsistency of economic reforms has lead to polarization of Russian society and appearance of new categories of citizens in need of social assistance.
Conclusion
Overall, the social policy in the contemporary Russian Federation does not present a unified strategy. While an attempt at introducing a social state in Russia has been made, the new system turned out to be eclectic, combining some of the old mechanisms with the new ones. The decisions in the domain of social policy are spontaneous at times, and the ongoing political and social changes seem to be too fast to be dealt with effectively.
With a significant part of the state’s resouses being spent on the military and defence industries, the contemporary situation is a complicated one since the priorities of the state do not correspond to the needs of many of its citizens.
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