Olga Gryaznova

Education and academic positions:

• 2013 - present time - doctoral researcher, European University Institute;
• 2013 - senior research fellow, Laboratory of comparative social researches, Higher School of Economics;

• 2012 – 2013 - Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, tutor in Sociology for University of London International Programs students. Course “Principles of Sociology” (in English) 

• 2009­ - 2013 – research fellow, Laboratory of comparative studies of mass consciousness, Higher School of Economics;

• 2007 – 2013 – research fellow, Institute of Sociology of Russian Academy of Sciences;

• 2009 - Candidate of Science Degree in Sociology, Institute of Sociology of Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). Thesis: “Theoretical Approaches in the Sociology of Revolution: a Comparative Analysis of the Concepts of P. Sorokin, L. Edwards and T. Skocpol”

• 2004 – 2007 - Levada Analytical Center (Levada-Center)*, project manager.

• 2002-2004 - M.A. in Sociology, Peoples Friendship University of Russia (Moscow), Department of Humanitarian and Social Sciences

• 1997-2002 - B.A in Sociology, Peoples Friendship University of Russia (Moscow), Department of Humanitarian and Social Sciences

Academic interests: social policy, social change and basic human values, welfare state, measurement in sociology.

Research projects: 

• Social position, values and support of different government welfare programs.A comparison of six types of welfare cultures (2013-2014)
• Self-interest and Values as predictors of Welfare Attitudes in Different Types of European Welfare States (2011-2012)

Self-interest and Values as predictors of Welfare Attitudes in Different Types of European Welfare States (completed)

The study examines the effect of self-interest and basic human values on welfare attitudes in different types of welfare states. Olga used data of European Social Survey for 29 European countries, which contains information on people’s attitudes towards responsibilities of welfare state. The difference in these attitudes can be explained by cultural features or by different macroeconomic indicators which are used in multilevel models on aggregated level. Self-interest and ideation indicators are the variables of individual level in Olga’s analysis. The dependent variable was Government intervention index.

One of the main hypotheses in this study is that collectivism and altruism promote demand for government welfare responsibility. Also, it was hypothesized that values have the strongest effect in the countries where the system of welfare distribution is unclear to people and non-transparent (ex-communist, family-oriented countries, etc). Olga divided all countries in the sample to several groups based on a theory she used.

The final results show that values of collectivism and altruism promote higher demand for state intervention in the perspective of citizens’ welfare, and values of individualism and egoism decrease it in all the countries.  Moreover, income is the strongest predictor of self-interest factors.  Different types of welfare state are influenced by values and income in various ways. For example, in ex-communist countries the effect of income, collectivistic and individualistic values is the highest. On the other hand, in familiaristic countries altruistic and egoistic values have crucial effect and there is little or no effect of personal interest factors. In liberal, conservative and social democratic countries values shape support for state welfare responsibility not so strong. In liberal and conservative countries effect of income is also not very strong as in ex-communist, and in social-democratic societies it is not observed.

Research Progress:

•  Proposal
• Presentation_2011_April
• Presentation_2011_August
•  Presentation_2011_November
• Presentation_2012_April
• Presentation_2012_July

Social position, values and support of different government welfare programs.A comparison of six types of welfare cultures (ongoing)

The main question of the research is whether the effect of values and social position on the demand for basic social guarantees, government regulation of family, and labor market policy varies across different types of welfare cultures. Data of European social survey for 29 European countries were used in this research, total sample 56752 respondents. The author considered public demand for three types of social programs: basic social benefits, family support and labor market regulation. The direct and indirect effect of the individual’s social position and the mediation effect of values on this demand were estimated by means of structural equation modeling. The effects are compared in six types of welfare cultures: social-democratic, conservative, liberal, familialistic, ex-communist, and former USSR countries. Values were measured by means of Sh. Schwartz methodology, and social position basing on intersectionality approach.

The main conclusion of the research is that there is no universal regularity explaining causal effects of social location and values on demand for three different types of government social programs in six types of welfare culture. Factors shaping demand for government provision of different types of social programs varies across countries.But there are severalsimilarities in direct effects typical for all the welfare cultures. 

• Presentation April 2013
• Presentation_November_2013

• Griaznova O. S. Factors Affecting Welfare Attitudes in Different Types of Welfare States: Personal Interests and Values / Working papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series SOC "Sociology". 2013. No. WP BRP 18/SOC/2013 Read online
• Griaznova O. S., Magun V. S. The Basic Values of Russian and European Schoolteachers // Russian Social Science Review. Volume 54, Number 2 / March-April 2013. Pp. 42 – 68
• Griaznova O. Russian Residents' Attitudes toward the Law-Enforcement Agencies: A Review of Recent Researchs // Russian Politics and Law. 2007. Vol. 45. № 3. Р. 74-104 Read online