Econometric Analysis of Informal Employment in the Russian Labor Market

Abstract

Informal employment is a problem for many countries. On the one hand, the state receives lower-than-usual tax refunds, and on the other hand, it leads to social insecurity of workers. The paper investigates the problem of informal employment in the regions of the Russian Federation on the basis of the data taken from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat in Russ.), also from the monitoring of the economic situation in Russia and the population health at the Higher school of Economics. The research of the informal employment structure in different Russian regions has been conducted, namely data on gender, age groups and types of economic activity have been compared. Binary choice models were used to identify factors that influence an individual's inclination to the informal employment. The constructed models have revealed the dependence of this factor on sex, the level of education and age, alongside with the place of residence and marital status. The proposed tools can be used in the development of the regional development strategies for obtaining projections of the employment structure in the regional labor market.