Published: 15 September 2016
The problem of «shadow» economic activity has caused an increasing interest in the scientific community, businesses and authorities during the last decade in Russia. Highly effective methods of obtaining information about the economic behavior of the employed population in the formal and shadow economic activities are sociological methods. The information collected with these methods allows the deepest and fullest exploration of the problem situations and allows to describe the trends in the development of the labour market and the «shadow» employment. The article is based on the materials of the sociological monitoring, which characterizes the scale of development of the non-criminal shadow economic activities, carried out since 2001 by a research team of Center for socio-political monitoring, RANEPA (until 2012 - the Sociological center of RACS). In particular, the study covers the non-criminal part of the shadow economic activities, i.e. the unreported labour activities (non-formal agreements (contracts) with the employer or the authorized bodies), the practice of unofficial payment of wages to employees, a wide distribution of delivery of services performed for a fee on an informal basis. A survey was conducted by the Center in the period from May 16 to May 23, 2016 with the support of partner sociological agencies in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. 1,600 respondents representing the employed population were polled, with the age of 18 and older in 35 subjects of the Russian Federation on a sample representing employees of the main types of economic activities employed in enterprises of different ownership forms, as well as basic socio-demographic characteristics. The survey was conducted by personal interview («face to face») at the place of work or residence with the strict observance of the principle of anonymity. The survey data is presented in comparison with the results of studies conducted by the Center earlier on comparable methodology.
