Individualism–Collectivism Differences Across 60 Russian Regions

This paper explores the cultural differences between Russian regions operationalized in terms of Minkov’s recent revision of Hofstede’s famous individualism — collectivism dimension (I-C). Using a large survey (N = 18,768) conducted in 2019-2020 and spanning 60 regions, we construct a cultural map of the Russian Federation illustrating withincountry variation in I-C. Our measure of I-C is based on respondents’ attitudes toward reproductive freedoms and gender equality in different spheres of life, aggregated to the regional level and then merged into a composite index via principal components analysis. The highest prevalence of individualistic norms is found in the Yaroslavl region, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, while the highest prevalence of collectivist norms is found in the Muslim regions of the Northern Caucasus. Such characteristics as average wage, geographical latitude of the capital, percentage of ethnic Russians and — to a somewhat lesser extent — freshwater availability per capita, predict higher prevalence of individualistic norms in regional culture. In addition, we find that the relative prevalence of individualism is associated with higher innovation rates, while the relative prevalence of collectivism is associated with less excess deaths per 100,000 during the active phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). At the same time, we do not observe the putative effects of I-C on the level of volunteer activity and the quality of regional governance. Finally, we report I-C scores for all 60 surveyed regions, in order to facilitate further research endeavors focusing on the interplay between regional cultures and socio-economic modernization in Russia.