Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
Ksenia Rozhkova works in the labor market, learns foreign languages to better understand the world, and loves going to the theater. In an interview with the Young Scientists of the Higher School of Economics project, she spoke about non-cognitive characteristics, her father’s influence on Hamlet, and myths surrounding the master’s degree.
How I got started in science
Neither science nor economics were in the original plan. I studied music as a child and was going to be a pianist until the fifth grade. Then I wanted to become a journalist, a screenwriter, and won Olympiads in philology and literature. My interests lay in the humanities, although I was also interested in mathematics.
In the tenth grade, it was time to decide on my future life, and I ended up in the evening economics and mathematics school at Moscow State University. Before that, I thought that economics was an uninteresting field where everything was exclusively about banks, money, accounting. It seemed terribly burdensome to me. But during my studies, my attitude towards economics began to change. I realized that it is a complex science that allows us to clearly structure the social reality around us.
In my second year at HSE, when I was almost ready to write term papers in the field of finance, my path was blocked by a faculty initiative. In my year, all the groups in our course were assigned to a separate topic. It was impossible to change it. Someone got macroeconomics, someone got economic history, and we got the labor market. I looked at the list of possible academic supervisors and chose Sergei Yuryevich Roshchin.
We wrote to each other, and I came to the Labor Market Research Laboratory. At first, everything was complicated and unclear. I remember when I first came to a scientific seminar in the laboratory, there was a very active discussion, methods and results were discussed. Apart from the name, I didn’t understand anything. But I was quite stubborn, and Sergey Yuryevich was patient and charming, so the work got going. And in my third year, I returned myself.
Of course, a researcher does not exist in a vacuum. His formation is greatly influenced by the people around him – other researchers, teachers. In this regard, I was very lucky with my colleagues both in the laboratory and in the Department of Applied Economics, where I now teach.
What am I studying?
I work in applied economics. This is primarily labor economics, but with forays into education economics and occasional forays into health economics. For example, my dissertation is on the influence of non-cognitive characteristics on various socioeconomic outcomes and human behavior.
Economists have been studying education and its returns for decades. By receiving an education, a person acquires or develops various skills. First of all, these are cognitive skills, that is, those related to intelligence. Basic ones are the ability to read, count, and write. More complex ones are, for example, knowledge of foreign languages and programming skills.
And there are non-cognitive skills that cannot be measured by IQ tests. These are various behavioral and psychological attitudes – how a person thinks and behaves in different circumstances and how this affects the decisions he makes. I studied how a person’s non-cognitive characteristics are related to his work results, that is, salary and employment, education and even life expectancy and bad habits.
To measure this, economists use methods from psychologists, in particular such a tool as the “Big Five.” Each person can be described in terms of five fairly broad characteristics. These are openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism and friendliness. These characteristics are formed at an early age: they are partly predetermined genetically, but to a very large extent they are shaped by the environment in which a person grows up, his family and other circumstances.
Accordingly, non-cognitive characteristics are closely linked to the issue of investment in education. It has been shown that targeted policies to develop productive characteristics early on can help children achieve better results in the future.
Parallel area of research
In our lab, for the past five years, I have been working on the graduate labor market—measuring which educational characteristics bring what returns in the labor market, and how they influence career trajectories and opportunities.
We work with unique data from the Graduate Employment Monitoring. This is a project of the Ministry of Labor and Rostrud — a huge array of data on all people who have received an education in Russia since 2016. Thanks to this data, we have the opportunity to focus on areas that were previously unknown.
For example, we have obtained the first assessment of the return on a master’s degree in Russia. We have found out what differences there are between the early career trajectories of full-time and part-time graduates and how the level of selectivity of a university affects salaries. This is a very interesting and practice-oriented area of research.
Is there a return on a master’s degree?
There are many myths surrounding the Master’s degree. For example, it is believed that employers do not delve into the differences between bachelors and masters and do not understand what these qualification levels are. That some believe that a bachelor’s degree is enough, while others think that it is necessary to go to a master’s degree. Or that a master’s degree is only needed in order to then go and defend a PhD thesis. These myths arise because there is little data on this topic.
We have shown that the return on a master’s degree is significant. It is present in the first year after graduation, and it increases as you advance in your career — more for women than for men. The highest return, of course, is for degrees from the most prestigious universities, but this is true for other educational institutions as well.
What I am proud of
Looking back, I am most proud of the fact that I got into HSE. It was not obvious. I did well on the Unified State Exam, but not brilliantly. Preparing for exams is a lot of stress. And the fact that it was HSE that ultimately became the main turning point, which predetermined many trajectories of my future life.
Now I try not to dwell on what has been done. If you have achieved something, it is great, but there is still a lot of work ahead. So if the research is written, submitted to a journal and published, I am happy and move on.
How we measure non-cognitive skills
We work with data from the Russian Monitoring of the Economic Situation and Health of the Population, which has been conducted in Russia by the Higher School of Economics since 1994. Various data on households and their members are collected annually. In 2016, the questionnaire included questions about the “big five”. There are 24 of them, and a person evaluates himself on a scale from 1 to 4. Questions, for example, are: how able are you to remain calm in a stressful situation? how much do you prefer to work rather than rest? Every five years, the same people are surveyed on these characteristics.
What I wrote about in my first article on non-cognitive skills
The material for this article in Voprosy Ekonomiki was my bachelor’s thesis. It was one of the first publications in Russia on this topic, so the formation of the research field took place simultaneously with the writing of my article.
Partly it was of a survey nature. Research, for example, shows that on average the characteristics of the “big five” are more pronounced in women. They are almost always, on average, more conscientious, open, extroverted, friendly and neurotic, that is, emotionally unstable.
Our main task was to see how this is related to the level of salaries in Russia. The basic assumption was that conscientious people should receive more. As well as emotionally stable people, because this quality is necessary for working in a managerial position. Accordingly, people who have less emotional stability are less likely to get into these positions and will earn less.
How Non-Cognitive Characteristics Explain the Gender Gap
These characteristics are most valuable at the top of the salary distribution, where management positions are concentrated.
Because of their lower risk-taking and less emotional stability, women are less likely to end up in higher-paying positions. This, in turn, contributes to the widening of the gender gap.
In general, the gender gap is influenced by many factors at the same time. This is vertical segregation: women are concentrated in the positions of senior specialists, not managers. This is horizontal segregation, when, even during their studies, women are distributed among specialties that lead to caring for other people (education, health care, and others), where salaries are lower than in finance or the IT sector. There are also a number of family and psychological characteristics. The topic is very complex, and the further a person moves up the career ladder, the less the gap can be justified by objective parameters.
What I dream about
I have a small, utilitarian and completely unrealistic dream. I would really like the process of publishing articles in journals to be fast. So that the article does not lie on the editorial desk for six months waiting for its fate to be decided and then does not have to wait another six months for publication. But I understand that this is impossible, due to the fact that there is more research, and the editorial forces are limited.
Science is the art of telling compelling stories. To do this, you need to be very knowledgeable about the material. You need to look around carefully and understand how certain processes work so that you can substantiate the data. It is important to rely on facts, not contradict yourself, not be false, and be honest.
If I hadn’t become a scientist
I wanted to write, and I could have become a journalist. But for a researcher it is also very important to be able to write a lot, convincingly and well.
I would like to run a Telegram channel, but I lack self-discipline and time. I would write about the theater. I love it as a spectator. My mother brought me to the theater, and she taught me that in the theater people do not relax, but think. Sometimes this is the process of unraveling the director’s ideas, sometimes an internal process of reflection. Theater is interesting because it is alive, and it often happens that performances die before they are removed from the repertoire. But if the performance is good, if there is live energy between the viewer and the actors, you can watch it endlessly.
What kind of theatre do I like?
I try not to miss premieres. I like it when directors approach the material in an unconventional way, trying to get something non-obvious.
I like the Theatre of Nations. The last thing I saw there was the play “Sato” by Philipp Gurevich. It’s interesting material, and I think that there is a lot that can be pulled out of this story on the verge of magical realism, but it wasn’t fully expressed in the play.
The theme running through Gurevich’s productions is the importance of family for a child and for the formation of personality. I was very impressed by Hamlet, which he staged for students at the Moscow Art Theatre School. In Hamlet, he emphasizes the importance of parental influence by having Hamlet speak in the words of his father. And it is likely that the sad outcome is predetermined by the family environment.
Who would I like to meet?
With Rachmaninov. He is my favorite composer. But I would not ask him questions, I would just watch the process of composing music.
How my typical day is structured
I don’t have a clear routine. Sometimes colleagues tell me that they have one day for research, one for teaching, one for something external. I like this concept, but it doesn’t work for me because something always gets in the way.
The best research is written either late at night or early in the morning, when no one is bothering you and you can concentrate. It’s great to be creative at night, to come up with ideas, to think up something new, and in the morning – to edit, to bring it into a digestible form.
Do I get burnout?
About four years ago, I participated in a talent pool program. I had to tell my respected colleagues what I did during the program and what I achieved.
I had a very productive year: I completed my master’s degree, entered graduate school, and published several articles and analytical materials. When I listed all of this, one of my colleagues said, “This is all great, of course, but I hope you don’t burn out.”
I was surprised by this wish. It would seem that I have a job, a lot of it, and it is different, I can switch between projects. It is very interesting, I like the process. How can I burn out with such input? In addition, I had before my eyes the example of my scientific supervisor, who manages to solve a hundred things at once, and it is simply awkward to burn out next to him.
Now I understand better what my colleague meant. It seems to me that burnout is not exactly about fatigue or about a person working a lot and not resting, but about an internal discrepancy between expectations and reality. You didn’t just work a lot and get tired, you worked a lot, and in the end, the research you wrote received one rejection, then a second rejection, then a third rejection. No one is immune from periods when something doesn’t work out, but it can be difficult to fight disappointment.
What else am I interested in?
I like foreign languages. I am quite fluent in English and Spanish. When Covid started, I suddenly started learning Turkish. And life took on new colors, because, as it turned out, there are a lot of Turkic roots in words and names. It was as if I had reached a new level of understanding the world.
And two years ago I started learning Chinese, just out of interest. It was a truly meditative activity, especially when I had to write out hieroglyphs line by line. Of course, I am an expert in hobbies that require a lot of time and effort. But Chinese surpassed everything I did in terms of the level of time investment required to maintain the level achieved. It’s like in sports: if you don’t practice for two days, you have to start over. Now Chinese doesn’t fit into my work schedule a little, but I believe that I will return to it someday.
What was the last thing I read?
“My Name is Red” by Orhan Pamuk.
Advice to young scientists
When an opportunity arises, don’t wait until you’re ready. You’re never fully ready for anything, so take advantage of opportunities and figure things out as you go.
This is consistent with one of my favorite quotes from Milorad Pavic’s book “Last Love in Constantinople.” I don’t remember it word for word, but the gist is this: if you move in the direction in which your fear grows, then you are moving in the right direction.
Favorite place in Moscow
I was born and raised in Moscow and I love it very much. It is an incredible city. I love walking around VDNKh, and also around the center of Moscow. My special tender love is Chistye Prudy and its surroundings. I went to high school in Milyutinsky Lane, we studied in the building of the former girls’ school of the Roman Catholic Church of Peter and Paul. Then I studied in Pokrovka for my master’s degree, and now I work there. An important part of my life has always been connected with this area.
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