The attitudes of students to family and children: comparison of data for 2013 and 2019

Abstract

The research into students' family values and attitudes is presented in the article. The authors compare the results of the polls which were taking place in 2013 and 2019 in Chelyabinsk. The general selection for the research was 174 persons (17-23-year-olds). 91 students (in 2013) and 83 students (in 2019) participated in the questionnaire. The results of the research have confirmed the tendencies to a decrease in the importance of the family as values found earlier among young people in Russia. It has been established that marriage as students view it is becoming freer from obligations, but it assumes reproduction in the form of the birth of children. The attitudes to the creation of their own family with two children in the long-term remain among students. Modern students want to build the relationship with the spouse as equals and to share obligations for children's upbringing between the husband and the wife. They consider that the age of 20 – 30 is an optimum one for marriage and becoming a parent. The results of the research allow predicting the whole complex of demographic problems whose reasons are the decrease in the importance of the family; the decrease in the orientation to the parental family as a role model; the acceptance and approval of civil marriages.