Motivation Trap on Russian Labour Market

The article is devoted to the phenomenon we named trap of motivation, i.e. to the individual unwillingness of employees to increase labor productivity under the condition of an increase in wages. Attention is focused on the existence of a cohort of workers (about 51.3%) who are not ready to work with great effort, even in exchange for additional remuneration. Two main motives for such choice have been identified: (1) alternative life priorities, (2) overwork. The elimination of wage injustice increases the probability of more productive work by 19–20 pp. Individual willingness to work harder is inelastic due to the value of the request for a wage rise (for example, doubling the request for a pay rise increases the willingness to work harder by 10 pp. only). In the context of generations, the "reform" generation and the generation of "millennials" have the greatest resource for increasing labor productivity. The probability of such increase maximizes at the ages of 36 to 38 years. The social basis for increasing labor productivity is represented by individuals with primary socialization in large cities, from families of workers, and also by industrial workers, professionals from service or public sector, and rural workers.

labor productivity, wages, labor market, theories of justice, theory of generations