RESEARCH OF POPULATION'S SELF-EMPLOYMENT IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: GENERAL AND PRIVATE PROBLEMS

The article attempts to critically comprehend the new tools of state regulation of self-employment of the population. The relevance of the issues under consideration is due to the fact that the segment of self-employment of the population belongs to the poorly stud-ied aspects of social and labor relations in the Russian Federation. Often this type of em-ployment falls into the "gray", informal zone of the economy of the national economy, this form is mainly used as an additional source of income. Interest in the discussion on this issue in the context of the unstable situation in the state, the coronavirus pandemic, has only grown. The ability to legally work in the status of "self-employed", on the one hand, reduces the risk of income reduction for the population, the risk of penalties, on the other hand – increases the social insecurity of citizens. Self-employed people are denied the status of unemployed and, accordingly, unemployment benefits, and do not accumulate work experience for pension accrual. The main results of the authors’ research are sum-marized in the first results of the pilot projects on regulating self-employment of Russian citizens, highlighting two aspects – "shadow" and female self-employment. The article assesses the impact of the new rules on the regulation of self-employment on the statisti-cal indicators of registration of citizens as" self-employed"; gender features in the structure of self-employment by industry, by type of economic activity are identified. The authors identify the opportunities and risks of participants in economic and legal relations (the state, women and society) in the "shadow" self-employment and its legalization; they offer recommendations for improving the process of registering self-employment based on a motivational approach.