Belarusian society: From the values of survival to the values of development and self-expression

Abstract

The article considers new trends in the value system of the Belarusian society. Based on the data of the international sociological surveys conducted as waves of the European Values Study and World Values Study, the authors identify changes in the value orientations of the Belarusian society over the past thirty years. The authors use the methodological approach to identifying the system of value orientations that was developed by R. Inglehart and K. Welzel. The study of fundamental trends in the changing value world of the contemporary society is of practical importance for understanding internal factors of the current socialpolitical processes and for assessing prospects for the further sustainable development of socialpolitical institutions. The article aims at identifying the main directions in the transformation of the value orientations of the Belarusian society since the acquisition of state sovereignty. The authors conclude that the Belarusian society moves from the values of survival to the values of development and self-expression. In the project, the authors conducted an analysis of the demographic structure of the Belarusian society in terms of value priorities and found out that the demographic base of secular-individualistic and self-expression values consists of highly educated residents of large cities of younger (under 30) and middle (up to 49) age. Given the growth of the share of population with higher education and the second wave of urbanization (the outflow from small towns to large cities), we should expect an expansion of this demographic base and, accordingly, the further spread of these value orientations. In this situation, the education system acts as a source of the ongoing changes and develops the value matrix of the coming social reality.