Household Strategies of Coping with Shocks in Post‐crisis Russia

Abstract The paper looks at the subjective evaluations of a number of coping strategies that respondents undertook to mitigate the effect on their welfare of the Russian financial crisis. Given the dramatic drop in formal cash incomes, how are people able to adapt? What are the relative importance and effectiveness of coping strategies to resist hardship in reducing poverty for different groups of households? The results of the analysis indicate that the choices of survival strategies are determined by the level of human capital in the household. The higher the household human capital, the more likely the household is to choose active strategies. Households with low human capital, households headed by pensioners, and low‐educated households are more likely to be socially excluded. A specific set of policy interventions should be targeted on such households to avoid the entrenchment of poverty, and the trend toward marginalization and impoverishment of these groups should be expressly monitored.