Authoritarian welfare and resilience: politics of child benefits in Russia

ABSTRACT

Recent literature on authoritarian stability and legitimation has highlighted the role of propaganda and information control, national identity politics, participation technologies and other communication strategies autocrats use to shape public opinion. The authoritarian tool kit is, incomplete if we do not account for governance-related measures. Focusing on authoritarian social policy and contributing to the literature on the authoritarian welfare state, this study measures the political effects of unconditional and conditional cash transfers, specifically focusing on child subsidies, that the Russian government has increasingly integrated into its policy tools. Social policy and child support earn the government political dividends in terms of shoring up public support and have acquired added significance over the last few years. It is part of the current social pact that enables authoritarian resilience during Russia’s war against Ukraine and that is made possible by the actions at the federal, regional, and municipal levels of government.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian politics
• authoritarianism
• social policy

Introduction

Recent accounts of authoritarian stability and resilience around the world have highlighted the role of manipulative, mostly intangible, instruments that autocrats use to shape public opinion. They focus on prompting authoritarianism by consent and “popular dictatorships” by directing information flows and employing symbolic and collective identity politics (Guriev and Treisman 2022; Matovski 2021; Rosenfeld and Wallace 2024; Sharafutdinova 2020). These recent arguments have taken scholars in the direction of exploring cognitive drivers of authoritarian support, including information processing, propaganda effects, and ideological and identity-linked factors. Material factors underpinning authoritarian popularity have received less scholarly attention. Such recent studies as Rosenfeld’s Autocratic Middle Class (2020) and Pisano’s Staging Democracy (2022) have become important exceptions from the larger trend noted above and focused on structural factors such as dependence on the state – at various levels – shaping public perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.

This bias has not gone unnoticed. Adam Przeworski (2022) recently critiqued formal models of authoritarian regimes for ideological and methodological biases that failed to integrate into the analysis of public opinion formation in authoritarian regimes less ideologically driven observations that authoritarian rulers might, at times, pursue policies and provide public goods that people value. Otherwise, Przeworski noted, autocracies are seen to be “surviving only because people are misled or repressed” (2022, 1). Treating people in authoritarian systems as either brainwashed or fearful might not be sufficiently fitting if we are to develop more accurate predictions about the dynamics of change and continuity in these regimes. The more nuanced accounts of “routine life” under authoritarianism must envision the space for people to stay out of politics or develop authentic beliefs and make choices within the social, political, and economic constraints they find themselves, beyond the models of propaganda and repression, which might help us better understand opinion formation as well as the factors that drive its change.

This study aims to bring attention to such material aspects of authoritarian governance and support as social policy and, specifically, child support. The main case study is Russia, a country with a political system that has been used to typify the new type of “information autocracy” that relies increasingly on mass media and digital technologies to control public opinion (Guriev and Treisman 2022). The increasing repressions against political opposition leaders and civic activists that have been evident already in 2021 and intensified with the war in Ukraine raised doubts about the informational dictator thesis. The empirical analysis below highlights yet another politically significant aspect of authoritarian governance that has not yet received sufficient scholarly attention and that is rising in importance in the context of the war-time economics and politics in Russia. The continuation of the government’s social support policies is arguably an essential element of the continuing resilience of Russia’s political system at all levels. The government uses social policy along with propaganda tools to ensure public acquiescence. The Kremlin also relies on social policy as a major element of integrating the occupied territories of Ukraine into the Russian state. In the four new regions of eastern Ukraine that are now controlled by the Russian authorities, new Russian legislation provides for social payments to different groups that are larger than the normal payments received by Russian citizens in other Russian territories. Such payments started in 2023 and, arguably, represent Russia’s strategy of seeking legitimacy and acquiescence from the population in these regions. Undoubtedly, this strategy builds on policy learning from the measures that have been undertaken earlier across Russia.

This study inquires into the Russian government’s social and anti-poverty policies that have taken center stage in governmental priorities over the last decade and have, arguably, been used as an additional tool for legitimating Russia’s president. This strategy became especially noticeable from 2018, when Putin started his fourth presidential term and, in his pre-election address to the Federal Assembly, highlighted welfare issues and pledged over 3 trillion rubles to support families, improve hospitals, child care, maternity pay, housing, and other issues. The¹ political function and socio-economic consequences of this orientation have turned yet more critical since the start of the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While the Russian economy is poised to slowly degrade under the weight of unprecedented sanctions and while the market economy has given way to state-controlled administrative measures in support of war efforts, the poverty level in Russia has fallen in 2022 and 2023 due to additional state-sponsored cash transfers to families with kids and payments to those who serve in Ukraine. The² Russian society is turning progressively into a more state-dependent one and the political effects of such an evolution are yet to be measured.

The empirical analysis below is based on a nationwide online survey conducted in December 2021, with part of the survey designed to measure the political effects of child subsidies on electoral behavior in Russia during the September 2021 parliamentary elections. I also rely on secondary research to describe the evolution and effectiveness of child support policies in Russia over the last several decades.

The preliminary findings from this analysis highlight the importance of state-based child support payments for Russian families as a tool for propping presidential popularity. These payments could be seen as a highly visible and popular measure that affects a big share of the Russian population and has immediate positive consequences: economic for the families and political for the president. From 2018 these payments have been promoted as “presidential” payments (prezidentskie vyplaty), to remove any doubt as to who should be credited for them. The empirical analysis indicates that Russia’s president and the ruling party reap political dividends from these payments. The social payments have been maintained and even expanded since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, with new benefits and payments targeting the families of those who were mobilized for war. These new welfare measures represent the state’s signal to the population of a reciprocity in state – society relationships, suggesting “the state will care about your family while you are fighting on the front.” The federal-level measures are complemented by additional regional measures, and this policy sphere has become a field for testing creativity and initiative of regional administrations and governors trying to demonstrate their competence and loyalty to Moscow.³

Overall, this case study of the politics of child benefits in Russia brings attention to the expansion of “illiberal paternalist” governance, not unlike the governance measures used by other authoritarian rulers to re-integrate the impoverished and socially marginalized groups through clientelist ties and dependence (Szombati 2021). The study contributes to recent theorizing on authoritarian welfare policies (Forrat 2012; Lendvai‐Bainton and Szelewa 2021; Logvinenko 2020; Pan 2020). Recognizing these paternalist aspects of authoritarian rule and the expanding relations of dependence on the state adds an important materialist grounding to our understanding of authoritarian statecraft. The study also reveals the sources of authoritarian resilience in the politically challenging times of war, when the government is trying to preserve a semblance of social stability and relies on social support measures to maintain the social pact that is crucial for maintaining societal acquiescence during war.

The paper is structured as follows: in the next section, I lay out the main theoretical approaches and posit the main testable hypotheses. I then describe the broad trends of increasing state influence and dependence in Russia over the last 20 years and focus more specifically on the evolution of child subsidies. I then describe the data and methodology and follow with the section presenting the main results and robustness checks. I conclude the paper with a discussion of the main findings in the context of the existing literature about authoritarian welfare policies, including other studies that have explored the recent evolution of the social policy of the Russian government.

Theoretical approaches

Two different analytical frameworks appear relevant for analyzing the political underpinnings of child subsidies in Russia. The first set of literature relates to the politics of cash transfers. Studies of poverty alleviation programs through conditional cash transfers have demonstrated that governments frequently use these programs for political aims: politicians can use these programs to influence political participation and raise electoral support for the incumbent (Baez et al. 2012) Camacho and Conover 2011; Drazen and Eslava 2010; Verdier and Robinson 2002). Studies of cash transfer programs in Latin America, and specifically in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, have noted that in a competitive environment politicians receive political rewards from those who participate in these programs (De La and Ana 2013). Brollo et al. (2020) have also demonstrated that politicians strategically manipulate enforcement of welfare program conditions around election time because they want to avoid punishment by voters who were found non-compliant and were refused state support. Based on these earlier findings in the context of Latin American countries, it is plausible to expect that similar patterns could be observed in other country contexts. Indeed, a recent study of a large cash transfer program in Poland found that the populist party (PiS) would not have stayed in power without the 2015 unconditional child benefit (UCB) program. Gromadzki, Salach, and Brzezinski et al. (2022) found that $100 of cash transfer per capita translated into a nearly 2% point increase in vote share for the ruling party in Poland, and this increase occurred due to attracting previously non-voting individuals.

The political environment in Russia does not feature political competitiveness anymore. In the twenty-first century it has evolved progressively in the direction of authoritarian stability, predictability, and control at all levels of state power (Garifullina 2023; Gel’man 2015). Voting in Russia does take place periodically, but it is marred by fraud and a tight control over those who run for state offices; it does not incentivize better public service provision (Beazer and John Reuter 2022; Saikkonen 2017; Zavadskaya, Grömping, and Ferran Martinez 2017). Therefore, the analysis of the political dynamics and rationale of social benefits in an autocracy requires a different theoretical approach.

The alternative set of academic debates that appears relevant in this regard focuses on authoritarian responsiveness (Cai and Zhou 2019; Truex 2016). In specific circumstances authoritarian leaders can exhibit behaviors and policies that we normally associate with accountable governments that are checked institutionally and are expected to respond to public demands. Autocrats can also try to deliver to their citizens and claim legitimacy based on performance and good governance. China, for example, has sought legitimacy for its ruling elites through showing systematic good performance, most notably in the economic sphere (Yang and Zhao 2015). “Pockets of effectiveness” have emerged even in Russia, otherwise characterized by a rather entrenched and systematic “bad governance” (2022; Gelman 2017). These pockets of effectiveness and responsiveness are not everywhere: they tend to develop in the spheres with high visibility, and relatively low infrastructural complexity. When autocrats have access to financial resources, they can use these resources strategically to receive the biggest political benefit. Ideally, such spending would involve creating rent opportunities for selected elites and demonstrating good performance to citizens. The case of pothole management in Moscow, for example, as well as the urban service provision more broadly in Russia serve as good examples of such authoritarian managerial practices that seek to manufacture legitimacy among the city residents, while providing profit-making opportunities for selected elites (Gorgulu, Sharafutdinova, and Steinbuks 2020; Zupan, Smirnova, and Zadorian 2021). Social welfare policies can also be viewed through this lens: they are very direct in terms of their individual effects and relatively easy to implement (especially in the context of well-functioning governmental digital platforms that the Russian government has developed). Cash transfers, specifically, are about distributing money directly to families and could be implemented with ease by the government.

Social policy measures do differ from the above-mentioned governance strategies in that they do not create parallel rent opportunities. Their effect is on the population and, particularly, the middle and lower societal strata (they do not concern the elites). These strategies have been referred to, in other contexts, as illiberal paternalism, or measures by right-wing authoritarian leaders to effect social transformation and draw social groups disenfranchised by neoliberal restructuring “into the fold of rightwing hegemony” (Szombati 2021, 1704). Scholars of autocratizing states have noticed the expansion of social policies happening in parallel with the weakening of democratic institutions (Szikra and Gabriel Öktem 2023). In such states the governments work on restructuring their social welfare systems to expand and strengthen electoral support. The two paradigmatic cases are Hungary and Turkey, where undemocratic governments under Fidesz and AKP, respectively, used social policy reforms and flagship welfare-expanding programs to build cross-class electoral coalitions that enabled their political longevity (Szikra and Gabriel Öktem 2023).

In the Russian context these governance measures, similarly, represent illiberal paternalist strategies whereby the regime creates a social pact between the rulers and the ruled that is enwrapped in the discourse of fighting poverty and unfavorable demographic trends. This social pact is the foundation of authoritarian welfare state (AWS) – the Kremlin’s political strategy of relying on a state-dependent middle class and the poor after the Kremlin’s pursuit of modernization (especially under Medvedev’s presidency) proved to be a political failure from the perspective of Russia’s elites. Russia’s earlier economic growth and modernization resulted in the rise of the autonomous middle class – the urban citizenry employed in the private sector – that went to the streets in 2011–2012 to demand free and competitive elections and protest Putin’s presidency. Currying the political favor of the less resourceful and more dependent groups in society is a simpler political strategy, provided there are financial resources to implement it. The role of this strategy grows further in the conditions of war because it becomes indicative of whether the government is capable of maintaining its social obligations (or even expanding them) in the context of increased uncertainty and anxiety.

Some scholars have argued that the AWS model has underpinned sociopolitical stability in Putin’s Russia all along, and attempts to reform the redistributive system (such as the 2018 pension reform) produced political repercussions (Logvinenko 2020). One can also observe, however, that the redistributive state logic evolved and expanded over time – starting originally with the Kremlin’s strategy of addressing the country’s deepening demographic crisis and later enveloping new groups into its fold (Deis 2022). Thus, the maternity capital program was initiated in 2007 as such a government instrument and the Kremlin’s flagship social program in terms of its scope and reach. It offered a big cash transfer (around $11 thousand in 2007 and around $12 thousand in 2012) to mothers who give birth to their second child (and every next one). More⁴ than 8 million families had benefitted from this program by 2021 (Naylor 2021). Maternity capital is still one of the most popular, family-oriented cash transfer programs in Russia enjoying almost 90% support level in the country. The⁵ previous findings about the political effects of such programs in other countries suggest that in Russia, as well, we should be able to identify a noticeable political effect of this program on individual attitudes and political support for the system. Therefore, I hypothesize (H1) that individuals who benefitted from maternity capital program in Russia would be more likely to support the party of power and more likely to vote for the incumbent. Furthermore, such political effects should be strongest during the year the transfer was received or shortly thereafter, and these effects would be wearing out with each additional year passing since the transfer (Manacorda, Miguel, and Vigorito 2011).

The Kremlin’s use of ad hoc unconditional cash transfers to large groups in society – such as those used in August 2021—a few weeks before the September elections at various levels of power (including parliamentary elections) – are also likely to be driven by electoral considerations and the Kremlin’s desire to demonstrate a paternalist care for its people. The electoral considerations underpinning this one-time child-related payment in August 2021 became clearer in 2022. While many Russian citizens expected repeated annual transfers to support school-related expenses for their kids, the government revised the program. In 2022, a similar child subsidy of 10 thousand rubles was available only to families with children from the occupied regions in Eastern Ukraine (LNR, DNR, Kherson, and other parts of occupied Ukraine). For⁶ other families, monthly child support is offered on means-based principle, if the family income is lower than the regional subsistence wage per person (for families with children aged 8–17). While⁷ the Russian government frames these programs in terms of anti-poverty and demographic policy objectives, I hypothesize (H2) that these social benefits are likely to influence popular electoral choices and that individuals who received these transfers would be more likely to vote for the party of power and express support for Putin. For Russia’s state-dependent and poorer social groups, such cash transfers – conditional or unconditional – demonstrate the state’s direct involvement and care for society. For the state, distributing such ad hoc financial disbursements through already established channels – based on the digital governmental platform Gosuslugi (https://www.gosuslugi.ru) – is infrastructurally very simple. At the same time, given the wide scope of such transfers – all families with children of a certain age – the strategy is likely to produce a strong and, most likely, short-term effect of increasing support for the government and, more specifically, for the country’s leader with whose name these payments are associated. In⁸ the minds of voters such payments would reflect the government’s recognition of what really worries most Russians: their material well-being. For a short time – when the funds go into people’s bank accounts – the state makes a big symbolic leap from being a far-away institution controlled by corrupt elites to a benevolent “parent” supporting its dependents.

It is plausible to expect that social policy that aims to reduce the level of poverty in the country has the greatest impact on the poorest groups in the country. Therefore, I hypothesize (H3) that the political implications are highest among those for whom the social payments make the biggest difference (those in the lowest income group).

Finally, an extensive literature on political implications of conditional cash transfers in Latin America has inquired into the motivational underpinnings of the patronage-style exchange observed in these countries: it is not always clear whether the voters cast their votes driven by reciprocity (underpinned by gratitude and fairness issues) or the more rational perceptions of government competence, viewing social support as a signal of government performance (Manacorda, Miguel, and Vigorito 2011). The reciprocity logic is central to clientelist relationships, while the authoritarian responsiveness literature highlights the performance aspects of governance. The analysis below will inquire into this issue based on the survey questions that explored the perceptions shared by all respondents as well as the benefit recipients.

State, society, and socialsphere reforms in Russia

While the 1990s saw the expansion of the private sector in the Russian economy, the 2000s witnessed the growing state footprint in the country’s economy and society. From the early years of Putin’s presidency, the government worked to strengthen state control, particularly over the economic sectors and industries considered to be strategically important (i.e. energy sector, finance, and defense industry). Later in 2006, the creation of state corporations such as Rosnano, Rosatom, Rostech, and others continued the trend of consolidating state-owned economic resources specifically in five main sectors: resource extraction, infrastructure, defense, finance, and media (Liljeblom, Maury, and Hörhammer 2019; Zadorian, Szanyi, and Farazmand 2021).

The proportion of the Russian population that relies on the state for its well-being has also expanded over the last two decades. The number of pensioners has grown from 2012 to 2022 from around 42.4 to 44.7 million. While the state sector’s contribution to GDP has remained relatively stable (at around 32–35%), the state’s footprint is even stronger in the employment sector. The share of state employment in formal employment has reached 50% (Di Bella, Dynnikova, and Slavov 2019). Around 33% of the Russian working-age population is employed directly by government institutions at various levels. Rosstat figures reveal that the share of incomes from private business in Russia shrank from 15.4% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2020 (Levada Center 2021). At the same time, the share of social payments has risen from 13.8% to 20.1% (compared to 16.3% in 1985) (Levada Center 2021).

The societal reliance on the state in Russia has expanded, among other reasons, due to the government-designed anti-poverty program and social protection strategies. In 2018 the Russian government set the goal of reducing the poverty rate in Russia by 2030 in half. The recent assessments by the World Bank have highlighted the ineffectiveness of these programs. With 3% of GDP spent on social assistance programs, Russia compares favorably relative to other countries’ spending on social welfare. However, as noted in a recent World Bank report, only 10% of these social payments actually reach the poor in Russia (Sanghi, Freije-Rodriguez, and Umapathi 2021; Yemtsov et al. 2019). Most of the funds are allocated based on a categorical principle (i.e. the recipient must belong to a pre-defined category, such as a family with a school-age kid), as opposed to income levels. Such social benefits therefore might be associated more with “middle class clientelism” and buying off large groups in Russian society than anti-poverty programs (Westberg 2022).

Few scholars who research social policy in Russia have noted that the Kremlin relies on education, healthcare, and pension policies to bolster political support, especially at the time of elections (Khmelnitskaya 2017; Sokhey 2018, 2020). However, most research on social policies has focused on their (in)effectiveness – whether in alleviating poverty, addressing demographic, healthcare, or other problems (Khmelnitskaya 2017; Slonimczyk and Yurko 2014; Sokhey 2018, 2020). Less attention has been paid to the evolution of these policies, the reasons behind their varied effectiveness, and their political implications. The political drivers shaping local public goods provision have been explored by Beazer and John Reuter (2022), who found that appointed mayors in Russia do worse than elected ones in maintaining the housing stock, for example. There are also studies of housing policy effects on individual redistribution preferences (Marques and Zakharov 2024). Surprisingly, scholars of authoritarian resilience and legitimation working on Russia have not tried to measure the political effects of such policies as maternity capital, or child support benefits that have figured prominently not only in pre-election political promises but also in the everyday lives of millions of Russian citizens. The political implications of these policies are arguably more pronounced now, in war times. Both the federal and regional governments in Russia introduced additional measures of social support to the families of mobilized Russian soldiers and those who signed contracts with the Russian military. In 2023 the government developed “the gold standard” of regional measures – a unified set of measures consisting of 20 items that is adopted in many of Russia’s regions. Most⁹ of these measures focus on support for children, housing, education, and soldiers’ families.

The evolution of child subsidies as a policy measure in Putin’s Russia

The Russian social support system is complex and fragmented into federal, regional, and municipal levels. There are about 150 social assistance programs at the federal level, about 200 programs in each region, and separate programs introduced by municipalities (Barabashev et al. 2023). The social support system underwent periodic changes and extensive reforms that, during the 2000s, concerned particularly the pension system, social services provision, poverty reduction, and social support of families with children. Analysts note that over the last two decades, the system of social protection in Russia has expanded and improved, becoming “more inclusive, data-driven, and client-oriented” (Barabashev et al. 2023, 720).

Government support for families with children existed even in the context of market reforms and the times when Soviet-era social obligations were largely abandoned. There were state-run programs of monthly child benefits (universal, at first, and income-based, since 1998) and other programs of support for families with more than two children (Teplova 2007). In the context of the inflationary 1990s and a weak state that ran into bankruptcy in 1998, these benefits were insignificant in terms of their financial value. Furthermore, the bureaucratic hurdles were such that many families could not access them. In the 2000s, the Kremlin undertook a more systematic revamping of these policies, in response to the demographic crisis and the declining birth rates in Russia. The revamping of policies to support fertility and young families with children coincided with the broader efforts to promote e-government, digitalization, and administrative reforms. The years of economic growth in Russia and expanding government revenues in the first decade of the twenty-first century enabled the expansion of the social support system as well.

The most prominent policy innovation in this regard was undertaken in 2007, when the Kremlin introduced a new “maternity capital” entitlement for mothers who gave birth to a second and a third child (Federal Law No. 256-FL of 29 December 2006). This was a sizable endowment of about $10,000 intended to be used for the improvement of housing conditions or education of the child, the mother’s pension, or for social adaptation of children with disabilities. Studies have shown that most families used this money for improving their housing conditions (Borozdina et al. 2016, 4). Recent studies have shown that this program has resulted in a significant increase in fertility rates, both in the short term and in the long run, and a small improvement in child health status (Proshin 2023; Sorvachev and Yakovlev 2020). Starting in 2020 maternity capital was also provided after the birth of the first child. Some scholars have noted bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining maternity capital that prevented some families from activating their capital, and citizen distrust toward the state-administered social policy, leading to illegal or shadow schemes of cashing the maternity capital (Borozdina et al. 2016).

Other studies have suggested that the government’s support to families with children is an effective way of addressing poverty in Russia because families with children face the highest risk of poverty (Kormishkina and Koroleva 2021). Specifically, 62% of poor families have children (Barabashev et al. 2023). According to other calculations, the level of child poverty in Russia is twice as high as the average level of poverty in Russia (Grishina and Tsatsura 2023, 78). Single-parent families, those with more than two children, with unemployed parents, and families living in rural areas are particularly at risk for facing a poverty trap.

Over the years, the government introduced various support programs at the federal and regional levels to families with children. In 2013, in the regions with low fertility rates a monthly payment of a minimum subsistence amount was offered to low-income families when a third (or more) child was born, until the child reaches 3 years of age. In 2018 Putin announced new child support payments to low-income families with one or two children until they reach 3 years of age. A new federal project “Demography” included new measures of financial support in the form of monthly payments to families with children whose income does not exceed 150% of minimum subsistence level established in the region of family residence (Deis 2022). In 2020 new payments were introduced to low-income families with children between 3 and 7 years old and, in 2021, to single parent families with children aged between 9 and 17 and pregnant women – on the condition that they were under the care of official medical institutions from an early pregnancy term. In 2022, these benefits were extended to full families with children aged 9–17. The changes introduced in 2022 made it possible to increase the share of low-income families with children who these payments actually reached from 17 to 38% (for families with children between 8 and 17 years old) and from 47% to 58% for low-income families with children between 3 and 7 years old (Grishina and Tsatsura 2023, 82). However, the overall reach has remained at around 50% of all low-income families due to different regulatory barriers (such as “zero income”) that hinder access to these payments.

Besides these regular payments, the government also practiced ad hoc unconditional child benefits of 10 thousand rubles that were announced, for example, in August 2021 (about a month before the September election) for all families with school-aged kids between 6 and 18 years old. Given that the average minimum living wage in Russia is around 12 thousand rubles, this sum of money is not insignificant. These payments were framed as government aid to support families’ school-related purchases, as the school year in Russia traditionally starts on September 1.

In January 2023 the government consolidated all these child-related payments into a unified benefit for children and pregnant women (edinoe posobie na detei i beremennykh zhenshchin) that is provided to women from early pregnancy until the child reaches 17 years old. This benefit is provided to low-income families earning less than 15,669 rubles per person (the subsistence level income in 2023); it is a payment in the amount of 50%, 75%, or 100% of the subsistence level for the working population in the region of residence. The earlier criteria used to assess the neediness remained the same, including, importantly, the rule of “zero income,” or the requirement for a family member to have at least one official source of income (a salary, pension, stipend, or business income).

Methodology

The data analyzed here were created through the original, nationwide online survey RuPPP (Russian Responses to Pandemic, Policy & Polarization) commissioned by King’s Russia Institute (King’s College London) and administered by Qualtrics in December 2021. The sample included over 1,800 respondents stratified by age, gender, and region to mimic national representation.¹⁰

The survey questionnaire included a range of questions related to COVID-19 experiences and individual attitudes towards and experiences with various state institutions. On the subject of social payments, the questionnaire included the following questions:

1. What kind of one-time social payments have you received from August of this year?

2. How do you plan to spend these funds?

3. Do you think over the last five years the government has improved support for low-income families?

4. Have you ever received maternity capital? And, if yes, which year?

5. Which social benefits do you receive on a regular basis?

The survey also included the following questions on presidential approval and voting preferences:

1. If there were presidential elections next week, who would you vote for?

2. Do you approve the actions of Vladimir Putin in his position of the president of the Russian Federation?

3. Which party did you vote for in the State Duma elections in September of this year?

To understand the nature of popular perceptions of social payments, the survey also included a question about the respondents’ view of the government’s motivation for instituting these payments.

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the survey sample. More than a quarter of respondents (26%) have benefitted from a one-time child subsidy since August 2021 and around 27% have received maternity capital. 69% of respondents in this sample have children. 35% of respondents reported voting for United Russia in State Duma elections held in September 2021 and 34% responded that they would vote for Putin, if the elections were to be held next week.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

Variable	N	Mean	S.d.
Voted for United Russia in 2021 (1 = “Yes”)	958	0.35	0.48
Intend to vote for Putin in 2021 (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.34	0.48
Voted for Putin in 2018 (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.40	0.49
Received Social Benefit (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.37	0.48
Received Maternity Capital (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.27	0.44
Received Child Benefit (1 = “Yes”)	1,794	0.22	0.41
Received One-Time Child Allowance (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.26	0.44
Received One-Time Pension Allowance (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.16	0.36
Female (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.51	0.50
Has Children (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.69	0.46
Low Income (1 = “Yes”)	1,815	0.10	0.30
Age	1,813	41	13

To test the hypotheses about the political effects of receiving government transfers for child support (whether ad hoc, one-time payment in 2021, regular child benefits, or maternity capital), I first used logit regressions. Dummy variables were created to measure support for the political incumbents depending on whether the respondents voted for United Russia or not, and whether they would have voted for Putin or not. There were three separate measures for child support: the receipt of an ad hoc child subsidy in August 2021 (child allowance), the receipt of regular child benefits, and the receipt of maternity capital. The survey also contained questions about the receipt of other social benefits and an ad hoc pension allowance distributed by the government along with a child allowance, which I included in the analysis as a comparison point. Age, gender, education, and low-income dummy variables are used as additional model controls to account for omitted variable bias.

Second, in response to potential selection bias (i.e. whether receiving child benefits and support for Putin and the incumbents might be driven by an unobserved variable biasing the results), I ran a linear regression model with endogenous treatment effects using “gender” as an instrumental variable for “child support” and the turnout (or intention to vote) as a dependent variable (a proxy for incumbent support). The logic of this testing is driven by the fact that child support is most often received by and assigned to females and the single-parent families are mostly headed by women, not men. In 2021, for example, only 1.7% of fathers took parental leave to care for a child under 18 months (Savinskaya 2024). As gender is normally ascribed at birth randomly, this measure can arguably serve as a valid instrument. At the same time, unlike support for Putin (where the female category matters because women tend to support Putin more), gender is typically not correlated with turnout and the intention to vote in Russia. Meanwhile,¹¹ the intention to vote could also be interpreted as a generalized sign of loyalty to the regime. Therefore, in this regression I view intention to vote as a proxy for regime support.

Third, since social payments, including child subsidies, are presented by the regime as anti-poverty measures, exploring their potential heterogeneous treatment effects depending on individual material status is important. The income-related questions in the survey allow for exploring such heterogeneity by analyzing the interactive effects of receiving child benefits and belonging to a different income group. With this in mind, I added to the regression an interaction term between the receipt of a one-time child payment and belonging to the low-income group defined, in this study, as individuals who selected “cannot afford meat and fish every week” on the question about what they can afford to buy.

Results

The results from the empirical analysis are reported in Tables 2–5. The logit regressions reported in Tables 2–4 support the three main hypotheses advanced in this study. Table 2 shows a consistent, statistically significant conditional relationship between the respondents’ intention to vote for Putin and the receipt of government transfers including two types of child benefits and maternity capital (but also ad hoc payments to pensioners). Those who have received such support are more likely to vote for the incumbent. Table 3 shows a consistent and statistically significant relationship between social transfers and support for the United Russia (as reflected in voting in the September 2021 State Duma elections). Those who have received such support (whether as child payments, maternity capital, or pension-related transfers) are more likely to support the party of power during the parliamentary elections. Finally, Table 4 reveals the temporality of the political effect associated with receiving maternity capital. The analysis that incorporates the year when maternity capital was received shows that the implications of such receipt for political support for the incumbent fade with time. There is a strong effect on political support of those who received this benefit in 2021, 2020, and 2019—when its psychological impact is fresh and the recollection of positive emotions associated with receiving this financial boost is strongest. The coefficients drop only slightly for 2019 but remain highly significant. The political effect is non-existent or more ambiguous and inconsistent for those who received maternity capital in 2018 and earlier. All¹² the above results are controlled for age, gender, income, and education. Among the controls, only low income is consistently associated with less support for the system.

Table 2. Voting for Putin (logit model).

Intend to vote for Putin in 2021
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Child Benefit	0.74***
	(0.13)
Social Benefit		0.74***
		(0.11)
Child Allowance 2021			0.45*** (0.12)
Pension Allowance 2021				0.40** (0.17)
Maternity Capital					0.47*** (0.12)
Female	0.14	0.12	0.17	0.18*	0.14
	(0.11)	(0.11)	(0.10)	(0.10)	(0.11)
Low Income (1 = “Yes”)	−1.18*** (0.22)	−1.20*** (0.22)	−1.18*** (0.22)	−1.22*** (0.22)	−1.22*** (0.22)
Educ: Secondary	0.45	0.59	0.46	0.40	0.55
	(0.64)	(0.61)	(0.60)	(0.58)	(0.59)
Educ: Professional	0.24	0.39	0.30	0.27	0.38
	(0.62)	(0.59)	(0.59)	(0.56)	(0.57)
Educ: Associate	0.47	0.62	0.52	0.49	0.60
	(0.64)	(0.61)	(0.61)	(0.58)	(0.60)
Educ: Undergraduate	0.37	0.56	0.41	0.41	0.51
	(0.61)	(0.58)	(0.58)	(0.56)	(0.57)
Educ: Graduate	0.46	0.60	0.54	0.54	0.62
	(0.75)	(0.74)	(0.71)	(0.71)	(0.71)
Educ: No response	0.59	0.75	0.49	0.38	0.59
	(0.87)	(0.84)	(0.85)	(0.83)	(0.84)
Age: 25–34	−0.21	−0.17	−0.14	−0.13	−0.19
	(0.20)	(0.19)	(0.19)	(0.20)	(0.19)
Age: 35–44	−0.13	−0.11	−0.24	−0.15	−0.20
	(0.20)	(0.20)	(0.20)	(0.20)	(0.20)
Age: 45–54	−0.27	−0.29	−0.42**	−0.47**	−0.38*
	(0.21)	(0.21)	(0.21)	(0.21)	(0.21)
Age: 55+	0.24	0.05	0.13	−0.20	0.14
	(0.21)	(0.20)	(0.20)	(0.23)	(0.20)
Constant	−1.07*	−1.31**	−1.00*	−0.88	−1.08*
	(0.62)	(0.60)	(0.59)	(0.57)	(0.58)
Observations	1,785	1,806	1,806	1,806	1,806

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses; ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

Table 3. Electoral support for United Russia (logit model).

Intend to vote for United Russia in 2021
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Child Benefit	0.51***
	(0.18)
Social Benefit		0.74***
		(0.15)
Low Income × Social Benefit		0.65
		(0.69)
Child Allowance 2021			0.32*
			(0.16)
Low Income × Child Allowance			−0.47
			(0.86)
Pension Allowance 2021				0.92***
				(0.23)
Low Income × Child Allowance 2021				−1.65
				(1.13)
Maternity Capital					0.38**
					(0.17)
Low Income × Maternity Capital					−0.20
					(0.69)
Female	0.20	0.17	0.21	0.20	0.19
	(0.14)	(0.14)	(0.14)	(0.14)	(0.14)
Low Income (1= “Yes”)	−1.23***	−1.47***	−0.98***	−0.85**	−1.05***
	(0.42)	(0.53)	(0.36)	(0.35)	(0.40)
Low Income × Child Benefit	0.31
	(0.69)
Educ: Secondary	0.04	0.28	0.15	0.45	0.29
	(0.65)	(1.00)	(1.09)	(1.30)	(1.03)
Educ: Professional	0.00	0.22	0.18	0.57	0.30
	(0.59)	(0.97)	(1.07)	(1.28)	(1.01)
Educ: Associate	−0.09	0.18	0.04	0.43	0.20
	(0.66)	(1.01)	(1.10)	(1.31)	(1.04)
Educ: Undergraduate	−0.18	0.10	−0.01	0.41	0.13
	(0.59)	(0.97)	(1.06)	(1.28)	(1.00)
Educ: Graduate		0.20	0.26	0.65	0.32
		(1.14)	(1.21)	(1.41)	(1.15)
Age: 25–34	−0.24	−0.13	−0.17	−0.20	−0.19
	(0.33)	(0.32)	(0.32)	(0.33)	(0.32)
Age: 35–44	−0.28	−0.21	−0.37	−0.38	−0.33
	(0.33)	(0.32)	(0.32)	(0.32)	(0.32)
Age: 45–54	−0.59*	−0.49	−0.69**	−0.83**	−0.63*
	(0.34)	(0.33)	(0.33)	(0.33)	(0.33)
Age: 55+	−0.27	−0.33	−0.36	−1.02***	−0.31
	(0.34)	(0.32)	(0.33)	(0.36)	(0.33)
Constant	−0.35	−0.81	−0.43	−0.72	−0.60
	(0.66)	(0.99)	(1.08)	(1.30)	(1.02)
Observations	938	949	949	949	949

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses; ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

Table 4. Electoral support for the party of power and Putin vs. year of maternity capital.

	(1) UR2021	(2) Putin 2021	(3) Putin 2018
Year of maternity capital received:
2021	0.77**	0.73***	0.75***
	(0.35)	(0.24)	(0.24)
2020	1.03***	0.63***	0.80***
	(0.32)	(0.23)	(0.23)
2019	0.69*	0.68**	0.59*
	(0.37)	(0.30)	(0.31)
2018	0.44	0.32	0.47
	(0.45)	(0.35)	(0.34)
2017	0.99*	0.27	0.20
	(0.54)	(0.38)	(0.37)
2016	0.54	0.79*	0.69
	(0.58)	(0.44)	(0.44)
2015	−1.31*	−0.42	−0.51
	(0.71)	(0.43)	(0.40)
2014	−0.07	0.55	0.42
	(0.54)	(0.46)	(0.47)
Before 2014	−0.30	0.27	0.30
	(0.30)	(0.21)	(0.20)
Female	0.14	0.12	0.15
	(0.15)	(0.11)	(0.10)
Low Income	−1.20***	−1.22***	−0.86***
(1 = “Yes”)	(0.33)	(0.22)	(0.19)
Educ: Secondary	0.51	0.51	−0.49
	(1.01)	(0.60)	(0.50)
Educ: Professional	0.48	0.33	−0.28
	(0.98)	(0.58)	(0.47)
Educ: Associate	0.37	0.51	0.05
	(1.01)	(0.60)	(0.50)
Educ: Undergraduate	0.27	0.44	−0.03
	(0.97)	(0.57)	(0.47)
Educ: Graduate	0.26	0.54	−0.45
	(1.11)	(0.71)	(0.64)
Educ: No response		0.62 (0.84)	−0.86 (0.82)
Age: 25–34	−0.20	−0.21	0.02
	(0.33)	(0.20)	(0.20)
Age: 35–44	−0.16	−0.15	0.03
	(0.34)	(0.20)	(0.20)
Age: 45–54	−0.48	−0.33	−0.09
	(0.34)	(0.21)	(0.21)
Age: 55+	−0.20	0.17	0.23
	(0.34)	(0.20)	(0.21)
		(0.84)	(0.82)
Constant	−0.83	−1.04*	−0.43
	(1.00)	(0.58)	(0.48)
Observations	949	1,806	1,806

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses; ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

Table 5. Intention “Not to Vote” if the next presidential election is held next week (regression with endogenous treatment effects).

	(1)	(2)
	Not Voting	Child Benefits
Low Income (1 = “Yes”)	0.10*** (0.04)
Educ: Secondary	0.12
	(0.09)
Educ: Professional	0.01
	(0.09)
Educ: Associate	−0.01
	(0.09)
Educ: Undergraduate	0.00
	(0.09)
Educ: Graduate	−0.15*
	(0.09)
Educ: No response	0.21
	(0.15)
Age: 25–34	0.03
	(0.04)
Age: 35–44	0.00
	(0.03)
Age: 45–54	−0.02
	(0.04)
Age: 55+	−0.01
	(0.04)
Child Allowance 2021	−0.14*** (0.05)
Female		0.24***
		(0.06)
athrho		0.13**
		(0.06)
lnsigma		−0.99***
		(0.02)
Constant	0.18*	−0.78***
	(0.09)	(0.05)
Observations	1,806	1,806

Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses; ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.

The results for step-two linear regression with endogenous treatment effects are reported in Table 5. This relationship shows that receiving the one-time child allowance in August 2021 negatively affects the response “I won’t vote” (if the presidential elections were held next week). Assuming a valid instrument, this result implies that receiving child allowance decreases the likelihood of not voting by 14%. This relationship is statistically significant and supports the first hypothesis that receiving child benefits brings political dividends to the regime (in this case, measured by increasing turnout).

These results highlight that conditional and unconditional cash transfers, while declared to be a poverty-alleviating measure, can be questioned on their effectiveness in addressing poverty issues but still work as an electoral strategy whereby populists or autocrats signal to the voters their responsiveness to popular needs, even if the needs cannot be met fully. That these measures do not address all the material needs related to raising children has been noted in other surveys conducted, for example, by the Higher School of Economics (Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya 2022, 91). These conclusions are also supported by the analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects in this study. Table 3 demonstrates that the interaction terms between a low-income dummy and the receipt of social benefit, child benefit, maternity capital, and an ad hoc child allowance in 2021 are not statistically significant. That is, the interaction term does not add any additional explanatory value to the analysis, and the main effects are driven by the negative relationships between the lowest income group that tends to support the system less and the groups that receive social benefits that tend to support the system more. Recipients of social benefits at the lowest income levels do not shift their political preferences upon receiving state support. This finding is more consistent with the “middle class clientelism” thesis that connects high levels of state management of the economy to the vulnerability of the middle class to co-optation and the resultant linkage of their livelihoods and welfare with political continuity and incumbent electoral support (Westberg 2022, 187).

Discussion

Scholars exploring governance in populist and illiberal regimes have recently noticed that the most politically successful populist leaders often exploit welfare policies to build broad electoral support for their rule (Szikra and Gabriel Öktem 2023). These observations appear reasonable given the arguments about economic insecurity being one of the key drivers of populism (Guiso et al. 2024; Guriev and Papaioannou 2022). Rising inequality, social stratification, and marginalization associated with the era of liberal economic reforms, globalization, and market expansion in the 1980s–1990s, culminating in the 2007–2008 financial crisis, have impacted most countries in the world. Russia is not an exception. Given its size, the regional differences in earnings and living standards are even more pronounced in Russia (Gerber and Gimpelson 2024). Therefore, the Kremlin’s focus on social policy is appreciated among the Russian population and this appreciation translates into additional votes for Putin and the party of power. This conclusion is supported by sociological studies in Russia, which demonstrate that the importance of support for low-income families with children is recognized by half of Russia’s citizens and not only the potential recipients of such support (Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya 2022, 90). Starting in 2019, the Russian government worked on transforming the system of social benefits to be more targeted and to reach the neediest groups, which resulted in the expansion of such targeted financing of needy families with children by 1.7 times (Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya 2022, 29). These measures have been important during the pandemic when almost half of the low-income households reported worsening material conditions (Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya 2022, 81). These social benefits remain very important after the start of the war against Ukraine, too. A survey conducted by the Levada Center in March 2023 indicated that more than one quarter of Russians received some sort of social benefits from the state. The Levada analysts also found a strong correlation between those who received social benefits and a higher level of approval for the Russian president (Goncharov 2023). The personalistic nature of credit-taking for social benefits is an important nuance to be noted. Although the social support measures exist at the regional and municipal levels too, the main support package is associated with federal funding and federal support and is linked to the Russian president, who has highlighted the issue in his speeches since 2018.

Most independent scholars who have analyzed and evaluated Russia’s pre-2020 anti-poverty measures have noted that these policies were not sufficiently targeted towards the poor (Sanghi, Freije-Rodriguez, and Umapathi 2021; Yemtsov et al. 2019). Even if these policies have been re-oriented towards the more needy groups since 2020, as the report by Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya (2022)—sociologists from the Higher School of Economics – suggests, the anti-poverty measures by the government cannot fully address the problem. These sociologists also recognize that in the end, economic growth and rising real incomes are more effective in this regard.

One of the results in the analysis above shows that the poorest people in Russia tend to support Putin less than those who find themselves in the upper brackets. This unexpected finding arguably manifests that social payments do not transform the livelihoods of the poorest. They are too low to make a real difference. This conclusion is also supported by the studies of maternity capital use that have demonstrated that only families in the middle-income groups could use this capital for buying new property rather than improving their housing situation. For poorer families the amount was insufficient to obtain a mortgage and, in rural areas specifically, many recipients of maternity capital used it to add central heating or sewerage to their homes (Proshin 2023; Savinskaya 2024). Therefore, it is plausible to suggest that the political effects of these policies build more on the demonstrative effects and the financial boost to incomes in families that are not in the lowest income groups to start with.

This observation is consistent with the government’s wide-ranging support for those Russians who were mobilized for war in Ukraine and their families. The state support to these groups is very extensive and consists of a long list of measures that include employment guarantees, free education and re-training, simplified rules for receiving social benefits, higher pensions, various tax benefits, loans and mortgage repayment holidays, free public transportation, and various other benefits. These support measures, of course, are aimed at making mobilization more materially attractive to increase the number of those who would sign contracts with the Military of Defense and provide additional manpower for the war. As such, this strategy is indicative of the Russian government’s reliance on money to solve its political challenges.

But how do the Russian citizens view these state measures? Do they make a difference and signal the Kremlin’s responsiveness to citizens’ understanding of their priorities? The evidence in relation to this question is somewhat ambiguous. The 2020 survey Ovcharova and Sinyavskaya (2022) mention in their report has found strong popular support for state assistance to the disabled, pensioners, and families with kids, which would imply that such measures would then be seen as a sign of government responsiveness. The responses to the question “why do you think the government introduced these social payments” in our 2021 survey reported in Table 6 show that more than half of the respondents (about 56%) views this support through a more cynical and instrumental lens, perceiving that the government is using these payments to manufacture popular support (around 41%) or prevent protests (around 15%). Around a third of respondents views social benefits through a less cynical lens: as a manifestation of good government policy (19.23%) or even government’s care for citizens (12.56%). Importantly, there is a considerably greater share of those who view social benefits as an example of “government care” among those who received social benefits (17.84% vs. 12.56%) which, arguably, signals a more emotionally underpinned appreciation among the recipients of this support. Given that for many Russians the central comparison point is Russia of the 1990s – the era of a bankrupt state and collapsing economy – it is not very surprising that these social benefit policies would earn the Kremlin the political support it desires from the middle-income groups that are becoming progressively (if gradually) more dependent on the state.

Table 6. What do social benefits mean to people?

	All respondents (Number/percent)	Recipients of social benefits (number/percent)
Government’s adequate policy	349 (19.23)	165 (21.97)
Government’s tool to boost popular support	745 (41.05)	310 (41.28)
Government’s tool to counter protest	276 (15.21)	94 (12.52)
An expression of government’s care for the population	228 (12.56)	134 (17.84)
Difficult to respond	217 (11.96)	48 (6.39)

Acknowldgement

I would like to thank the participants in the DC Area Postcommunist Politics Social Science Workshop based at George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), and participants in the workshop on Russian public opinion held at Princeton University for useful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/messages/56957.

2. https://meduza.io/episodes/2023/04/06/rossiyskie-vlasti-snova-raportuyut-o-sokraschenii-bednosti-v-strane-e-e-e-no-ved-eto-zvuchit-kak-bred; https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poverty-level-russia-dropped-93–2023-says-statistics-service-2024-03-06/

3. https://iz.ru/1406250/ekaterina-rakitina/s-obshchei-pomoshchiu-regiony-vvodiat-svoi-mery-podderzhki-mobilizovannykh.

4. This sum amounted to 14.5 average monthly salaries in Russia in 2012 (Borozdina et al., 2016).

5. https://fom.ru/Rabota-i-dom/14349.

6. https://nsk.bfm.ru/news/11731.

7. https://www.gosuslugi.ru/10625/1; http://duma.gov.ru/news/53914.

8. It is important to note that the August 2021 ad hoc payments included not only child-related payments but also payments to pensioners and the military.

9. https://iz.ru/1406250/ekaterina-rakitina/s-obshchei-pomoshchiu-regiony-vvodiat-svoi-mery-podderzhki-mobilizovannykh.

10. The sample includes only internet users, who may potentially differ from national representation. All online surveys would unfortunately have this caveat.

11. Admittedly, in earlier electoral cycles there were other electoral strategies to mobilize women’s turnout, such as family-focused TV ads or even pro-Putin songs. However, their effectiveness by 2021 is arguably considerably less (or even non-existent) than the persuasion through child support. The government’s increasing reliance on social benefits as a policy instrument underscores what is perceived by government officials as a more effective political strategy.

12. There is an anomalous case of a statistically significant negative effect on United Russia support found for those who received maternity capital in 2015. One potential explanation might be that children in families that received maternity capital in 2015 started going to school in 2021 (when the survey was conducted). Many of these families might have experienced some financial squeeze in this period or other changes that could have arguably spilled over onto voting preferences.