Article
Семья и домохозяйство в России: демографический аспект
The article examines the evolution of the demographic structure of households in Russia based on a detailed analysis of national population censuses and micro-censuses for a long time series and a comparison of census data for different years. It is noted that, due to the fact that the object of Soviet censuses was the family, while the object of post-Soviet censuses is the household, there are certain limitations on analysis of a long time series for Russia. At the same time, the focus on the household in Russian censuses makes it possible to compare them with the statistics of households in many foreign countries. The main trends in the size and structure of households in Russia are revealed based on the data of population censuses and population micro-censuses. A comparative analysis between the structure of households in Russia and those in foreign countries (European countries and the USA) is made. It is shown that, despite the decrease in the average household size and the growth in the share of single households, the share of extended households in Russia is still much higher than in Europe and the USA. The structure of Russian households is characterized by a relatively low proportion of married couples without children and a high proportion of single-parent family households (especially of single-parent families within complex households).
The proposed monograph - one of the first scientific papers, which the system based on the conceptual model of the households in the structure of the national economy. Updated theoretical and methodological basis of the research institute of the household, its place in the reproductive and financial systems of the national economy. A special place in the book takes the study of households in the institutional system, including property relations and informal institutions. The analysis of the functioning of households in different economic systems proposed directions of households in the context of the national economy.
For teachers, researchers and graduate students, as well as for all those interested in the functioning of the household and efficient interaction of economic agents.
This chapter addresses the relationship between class, family and social welfare policies by analysing the construction of the identity category of ‘unfortunate families’ in popular scientific discourses, governmental policy documents and discourses of social services, and by examining how those labelled as ‘unfortunate’ negotiate this identity conferred to them. The chapter shows that gender and class are closely intertwined in the production of this identity, as it is single mothers who are primarily categorized as ‘unfortunate’. In our analysis we draw on multiple sources of data. First, we analyse in-depth and focus group interviews with service providers and clients and participant observation data from a number of Russian cities. Second, we analyse various government documents and social advertisements, mass media materials, social policy and social work textbooks, and popular scientific texts published during the 1990s-2000s.
The article at issue is intended to look into family-related concepts through experimental psycholinguistic tools. Furthermore, it involves substantial references to linguistics, history, sociology, and psychology to reveal the background of the experimental data retrieved. Such approach allows researching and accounting for the experimental data from different angles what makes the interpretation more comprehensive, thorough and credible.
Apart from the public sphere and the norms set by society, the private sphere plays an important role in the lives of the disabled, including the personal experience of disability at a micro level: in their families, everyday routines and romantic relationships. In this chapter, issues of family structure are considered using a narrative analysis of interviews with women who use wheelchairs. Various cultural, social, economic and political determinants effect the formation of certain types of family structure and attitudes towards family life. At the same time, they interrelate with biographical factors that reinforce or weaken the limits of freedom and private life. Using narrative analysis, I demonstrate what role family plays in constructing the identity of a person with a disability, and how family members act as coauthors of individual biographies. This can be seen in those dilemmas of family life associated with the feelings, sexuality and emotional stability at the micro-level of the life experience and identification of women with disabilities.
In this chapter we aim to examine the discourses created and reproduced through the interaction between single mothers and representatives of social services. The analysis is based on twenty-six interviews with single mothers and six interviews with social workers conducted in 2001–2003, and six interviews with single mothers and three with social workers conducted in 2006 in the Saratov region in Russia, as well as official documents and the publications of other researchers. In our interviews with mothers, we focused on the issues of familial well-being and interactions with social services, while social workers were asked to discuss their experiences with clients. A short overview of statistics and social policy terminology prefaces a discussion of how mother-headed families and state social policy interrelate and affect each other. The subsequent sections contain analysis of the interviews with single mothers who, as the heads of low-income households, interact with the social service system. The analysis demonstrates that single mothers are frustrated by inadequate assistance and the impossibility of improving their life situations. The discussion goes on to show that social workers, who are used to interpreting complex issues in the life situations of single mothers as individual psychological peculiarities, tend to blame the victim, thus ignoring important social conditions and imposing on women a responsibility for problems that are societal in origin.
On the example of advocacy support of National Population Census in 2010, some specifics features of public information projects under the existing regime of public procurement are considered.
Several approaches to the concept of fatherhood present in Western sociological tradition are analyzed and compared: biological determinism, social constructivism and biosocial theory. The problematics of fatherhood and men’s parental practices is marginalized in modern Russian social research devoted to family and this fact makes the traditional inequality in family relations, when the father’s role is considered secondary compared to that of mother, even stronger. However, in Western critical men’s studies several stages can be outlined: the development of “sex roles” paradigm (biological determinism), the emergence of the hegemonic masculinity concept, inter-disciplinary stage (biosocial theory). According to the approach of biological determinism, the role of a father is that of the patriarch, he continues the family line and serves as a model for his ascendants. Social constructivism looks into man’s functions in the family from the point of view of masculine pressure and establishing hegemony over a woman and children. Biosocial theory aims to unite the biological determinacy of fatherhood with social, cultural and personal context. It is shown that these approaches are directly connected with the level of the society development, marriage and family perceptions, the level of egality of gender order.