THIS IS A DRAFT PAPER. PLEASE DO NOT CITE, QUOTE OR DISSEMINATE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR’S PERMISSION.

In this paper I construct a social status scale for post-Soviet Russia, using the relational occupational scales approach. The Russian scale shows a high degree of consistency with status scales in other countries. As in other countries, social status in Russia is closer related to education than to income. In post-Soviet Russia, compared to other countries, the relationship between status and education is quite strong, while the relationship between status and income is remarkably weak. Subjective social class is well correlated with social status, especially at the group level. The social status scale for Russia did not exist before and may be used in other research on social stratification. In this paper I deal with the notion of social status, its empirical measurement and application for Russia. I start with a discussion of the definition of status, then move on to a review of the empirical research on occupational status and prestige. Then I elaborate on occupational status in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and hypothesize possible differences in the status hierarchy between Russia and othe