Longitudinal survey RUSSET – wave 8 2024-2025

 

New wave was designed as the continuation of the longitudinal survey of 1990-s, 30 years after the first wave, tracking the same indicators but also to get evaluations of the life course and its domains as a whole. Survey goal was to measure stable and changing characteristics of the same respondents – their values, satisfaction with life as a whole and life domains, behavior patterns and living conditions.

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The survey was conducted in 2024-2025 as the 8th wave of longitudinal survey with the financial support of RSF. The sample included respondents participated in the survey “RUSSET-1990s”, who were born between 1960 and 1974, and also respondents from the older generation of 1950-1959 for the generational comparisons.

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Formalized questionnaire included 8 specially prepared modules about different domains and aspects of the life course of the generation. Some of the questions are the same as in the questionnaire of the 1990s for direct time comparisons, some questions were designed to reconstruct the events between 1990s and current time, to get the evaluations and opinions about the life course and the current life stage. The average length of the interview was 55 minutes.

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The data collection was done by mixed-mode approach, the choice of the mode was done by respondents: personal interviews (CAPI), telephone interview (CATI) or self-completion online (CAWI). Contacts with each respondent were done by step-by-step procedure – telephone contact, mail invitation for some cities, personal visits of 1202 addresses, the search of contacts in open sources (social media, databases).

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If respondents who were found but interview could not be conducted (passed away, moved in an unknown direction or not able to be interviewed because of health issues), informants among close people were interviewed using two questionnaires – either Questionnaire about passed away respondent or Questionnaire on moved/ disabled respondent.

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The contact stage lasted for 7 months resulting in 124 completed interviews with main respondents of the 1990s, 74 interviews with informants about respondents who passed away and 59 interviews with informants about moved respondents (move and not found).

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Population survey ‘RUSSET after 30 YEARS” New sample – Three Russian generations

 

The survey using the questionnaire of RUSSET was conducted on the new sample of respondents. The goal of the survey was to compare basic parameters of the life course of target generation (1960-1974) to older and younger generations, concurrent and retrospective data, and cross-sectional data for general adult population of Russia and age cohorts in 1990-s and in 2024/25.

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Formalized questionnaire includes questions from ‘RUSSET after 30 YEARS” and additional retrospective questions about historic time of 1990-s.

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The survey was designed to represent three generations of Russians: older generation born 1959 and before, generation of reforms born 1960-1974 and younger generation 1975 and later. The survey among the generation of 1960-1974 was conducted in 2024, the survey of two other generations – in 2025. The sample was designed on the same definitions of represented population as RUSSET-1990-s to conduct cross-sectional comparisons.

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Three samples were combined into one database representing the general population of Russia 18 years old and over. The proportional and demographic weights were constructed to account for the size of each generation in the general population.

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The GEOLIFE – the population survey of geographical mobility over the life course

 

The method to study geomobility includes 5 parameters about each transition: direction of mobility (starting location and end location), time of mobility (year or respondent’s age), purpose of mobility, decision-making (respondent, join decision with other people or forced decision), difficulties in adaptation (easy or difficult to adapt in new place) and the evaluation of consequences – impact on life course (positive, negative, neutral). The information was collected about the first and the last transition (due to the length of an interview).

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Quantitative formalized survey on probability random sample of Russian population born in 1974 or earlier.

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The data collection method was personal face-to-face interviews in respondent’s homes in fall 2023-spring 2024 based on National probability random sample. In total 2000 respondents in the main sample and 326 boost interviews with mobile respondents were conducted. Boost sample was designed to increase the number of mobile respondents in the database.

 

The population survey “Social attitudes of Russians – 30 years after RUSSET”

 

The purpose of the survey was to measure the dynamic of social attitudes of Russians in respect of ethnocentrism and interethnic relations. The survey questions were the same as in RUSSET-1990-s (questions were designed by the international scientific team, Jack Billiet as principal investigator) in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999 (different sets of questions and question formats).

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The data were collected by telephone interviews (CATI) on dual frame sample of stationary and mobile phones. The sample design model is RDD (random digit dialing) – random generation of telephone numbers using fixed prefixes selected randomly from the general list of telephone prefixes in regions of RF proportional to the number of live numbers in a prefix.

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In total 1008 respondents were interviewed at summer-fall 2023. The main part of the questionnaire (ethnocentrism and attitudes toward ethnic minorities) were asked to respondents who identify themselves with ethnic Russians (845 respondents). The sample was close to the universe by main socio-demographic and geographic parameters (Goskomstat data of 2020).

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In-depth interviews “Motives and consequences of geomobility”

 

The research goal was to find information about motives, barriers and characteristics of geomobility among different Russian generations. The particular research tasks were to study the decision-making process about moving to a different city or region – stimulus, barriers, agents, and also to study immediate, short-term and long-term consequences and results of the mobility, to study motives of non-mobility and unrealized mobility and also the normative image of mobility.

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In total 30 in-depth interviews were conducted, each interview lasted for about 45 min. Respondents were people who changed the place of residence at least once since their 16 years old – city, region or country, but not counting housing mobility within the same settlement.

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The principle of contrasted groups comparison was used for the selection of generations included in the sample: target generation – born in 1964-1974 (generation of reforms), young generation (1980-1989) and older generation (born in 1950 or earlier). Respondents were recruited from different regions of the country, with different education, employment status and income, also with different motivation of mobility – education, family, quality of life or self-realization and work.

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In-depth interviews “Subjective perception of life time»

 

The research was conducted to study subjective periodization of life course, markers of transition to other life stages, life events in each life stage. The second purpose was to test the potential and limitations of retrospective evaluations of changes in different life domains, plans and expectations in the young years and the realization of the plans over the life course, the criteria used to define “successful” life or “good life”.

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In-depth interviews with respondents born in 1960-1979 of different genders, regions of Russia and socio-economic status. In total 100 in-depth interviews were conducted by telephone (TII) of 30-35 min each in spring-summer 2023.

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In-depth interview with cognitive questions “Age norms”

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The main issues covered in these interviews were age social norms regarding major life stages and life events, reasons and sources of age norms, sanctions for violation of age norms.

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In-depth interviews were conducted with respondents from three generations: older generation (born 1949 and earlier), generation of reforms (1960-1979) and younger generation (1980-2005). The contrasting principle of selection of generations was used for the comparison – the more distant generations were included to highlight the differences. The composition of respondents included half male and half female respondents, half – people with higher education and half with lower education, a mixture of respondents form different regions and urbanity.

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In total 103 in-depth interviews were conducted by telephone (TII) of 40-45 min each. It included open ended questions on the age of transition to different life stages and cognitive questions why these age limits were mentioned, what are the sources of such perceptions.

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«Biographies of the generation” – autobiographies and follow-up in-depth interviews

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The research was planned to be the basis for designing conceptual approach for analysis of the life course and for preparing questionnaire for quantitative survey RUSSET. The additional task was to test the method of sociological autobiography for studying the life course.

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The project is based on experimental design, it was conducted in few stages to test different forms of autobiography (hand-written, printed online and offline and oral – audio), instructions and guidance to prepare the autobiography, to evaluation the cognitive load of this task, the sensitive issues, and also the methods of data processing. The separate task was to compare the use of autobiographies by different cultural-ethnic groups.

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The sample consists of two parts. The first part conducted in summer-fall 2023 includes 100 respondents of 1960–1975 from different social-economic groups and geographical regions. The second part was conducted in in 2024-beginning of 2025 with 50 respondents from different cultural-ethnic groups (three large groups – Volga groups, North Caucasus groups and Siberians).

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Method. Stage 1. Preparation of autobiography – respondents work on its autobiography without presence or guidance of research and send the text or audio for processing.

Part 2. Autobiography is transmitted to standard format, researchers fill the event-matrix of life course for each respondent and prepare the individual protocol for follow-up in-depth interview to fill the missing gaps, events and also ask about motives of life decisions and transitions.

Part 3. Conducting in-depth interviews personally or by phone. The first part of the interview was devoted to reconstruction of events (time, sequence, reasons, and agents) and also the motives of life decisions. The second part of the interview included general evaluations of the life course and its domains, influencing factors and important drivers. The third part consisted of cognitive questions about preparing the autobiography – understanding of the task, workload, process, sensitivity, missing topics.

The results of in-depth interviewers were integrated into the life-event matrix for each respondent, then other information was coded into 95 formal indicators. The resulting database included the raw text of autobiography, individual life-event matrix, 70 indicators about different life domains – the achieved status and the history, and also 25 indicators of evaluations of life course.