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Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), the first nationally representative household survey in the Russian Federation, the author examines the gender earnings differential in Russia during the country's transition to a market economy. The gender wage ratio is calculated at 71.7%, and most of the difference is found to be attributable to occupational and industrial employment segregation by gender. The author argues that the lower pay in "female" industries and occupations is determined by the interaction of the institutional factors inherited from the Soviet past with the forces of the emerging market.

Based on two rounds of a nationally representative household survey, this paper presents an exploratory study of risk factors and the economics of the decision to smoke by adults in Russia in the second half of the 1990s. With an overall smoking prevalence of 32.2%, smoking is much more prevalent among men (61.4%) than among women (10.3%). The risk of smoking is on the rise in Russia due mainly to the growing incidence of female smoking, especially in major urban centres, where the impact of modern culture and Western tobacco companies is more profound. The low estimated price elasticities of the decision to smoke for men (−0.085) and for women (−0.628) suggest that an excise tax on cigarettes is not an effective means to reduce the prevalence of smoking. The decision to smoke is also found to be very income inelastic. Formal education, occupation, alcohol consumption, and obesity are associated with smoking in a way similar to developed countries. Comparative Economic Studies (2003) 45, 87–103. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100001

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