russia's declining birth rate is linked to a delay in a family's decision to have children and to uncertainty about the place of children in a couple's relationship. despite the rise of individualism and the importance of career and self-realization, however, the family retains a very important place in russian society.Russia's ongoing processes of change in the everyday lives of Russians in the course of the transformation of Russian society have to do with processes that are linked to the transformation of the institution of the family and that determine what is called demographic modernization [1]. Demographic modernization is characterized by the fact that "all of an individual's thoughts are focused on achieving self-realization, on freedom of choice, on personal development and an individual lifestyle, on emancipation, and this is reflected in the formation of the family, and in attitudes with respect to birth regulation and motives of parenthood" [2, p. 3]. Inasmuch as this process is associated with the nuclearization of the family, with the rise in the age at which people marry and have children, and English translation