Lifestyle of Contemporary Russian Youth: Attitudes and Behavior Annotation

Abstract

Fundamental changes in Russian society entailed a change in living conditions, ways of organizing it, and life styles. The relevance of the practical study of life styles as the basis for the stratification of society is justified by its ability to reflect the totality of the individual’s life practices that are closely related to his attitudes, life principles. The lifestyle shows the behavior of a person in labor activity, the main consumer practices, the organization of leisure activities, inclusion in public organizations, his orientation to socio-economic activity in general. In conditions of sufficient theoretical elaboration of this topic by foreign and domestic authors, there is a clear gap in the practical multicomponent, in accordance with the studied value, measurement of the prevailing lifestyle. Based on the theoretical model, starting from the works of P. Bourdieu G.-P. Muller, Bauman, J. Baudrillard, the author offers a practical indicator model for measuring lifestyle and gives an example of its testing on the population of the city of Cherepovets. The main practical indicators of lifestyle are: locus of responsibility (internal or external), level of claims, attitudes toward work, leisure preferences, breadth of developed consumer practices. In the practical part of the article, the author, citing the results of the study for all age groups, focuses on the specifics of the stylized attitudes of youth as one of the most promising categories for the development of society. Argued evidence of the passivity of modern youth, overstated claims and self-esteem with a low level of attitudes toward social, economic and social participation and participation in society are given. Young people are traditionally distinguished by a higher level of socio-economic optimism, the index of social sentiments in this group is higher than among the entire population. Young people have a locus of responsibility that is ambiguous for interpretation. On the one hand, they believe that their financial situation and career depend on themselves, on the other hand, external factors (luck, good connections, rich influential parents) often consider the factor to achieve a high position in society. Young people are not distinguished by high socio-economic activity and readiness for it. The results of the study confirm that not all young people seek to take an active part in volunteer activities. Young people participate in actions most often of an entertainment plan and are much less likely to take responsibility and take part in political and public affairs.