Stability and precarity in the lives and narratives of working-class men in Putin’s Russia

The need for employers to adapt to global neoliberal capitalism has led to growing flexibility in employment relations, with more peripheral workers experiencing insecurity. In post-Soviet Russia, adaptation to the global marketplace created insecurity on a massive scale, coinciding as it did with the collapse of state socialism. Enterprises cut workers’ hours and wages in order to survive, and workers were forced to develop their own ‘survival strategies’ through secondary, informal employment. Although the legitimacy of the Putin presidencies has been built on the promise of greater economic stability, recent news reports point to the emergence of significant pay arrears. This article uses employment and income data to establish current trends in income insecurity, and a recent ethnographic study of working-class men to explore experiences of precarity amongst this group. Both data sources indicate ongoing instability, as many workers continue to rely on secondary incomes to make ends meet