Migrants' access to housing in Russia: evaluation methodology and results of the experimental study

The authors consider one of the aspects of the socio-cultural integration of migrants into the host society. The integration of migrants is interpreted by a wide range of scientists as the process of including newly arrived in various spheres of life of the host society. Usually, there are three to four such spheres. Access of migrants to housing in the host country is an important indicator of integration in the socio-economic sphere. As a rule, in Russian and foreign studies, access to housing is assessed through a comparative analysis of the living conditions of migrants and the host population. However, access to housing and housing conditions are not exactly the same thing. Rather, access implies the potential for housing. To assess such a possibility, an experimental method that allows the researcher to test various hypotheses and control the variables of interest is more suitable than a mass survey or available statistical data. The article contributes to the methodology for studying migrants' access to housing in the host country. It proposes a new approach to its assessment and presents the first results of its approbation. In the course of the experiment carried out by the authors, the influence of the citizenship of potential tenants on access to high-quality and low-quality housing in Moscow was measured, as well as the willingness of landlords to register migrants on their property. Significant differences in the access of migrants from different CIS countries to renting Moscow accommodation were revealed. The most loyal attitude is towards Belarusians and Ukrainians, the least preferable are immigrants from Central Asia, especially citizens of Tajikistan. In addition, it was found that all groups of migrants are seriously limited in their ability to obtain a valid migration registration due to the unwillingness of the owners of residential premises to fulfil their obligations to “register” foreign tenants. This obviously impedes their integration in the political and legal sphere of the host society, since a foreign citizen in the Russian Federation without a genuine document on migration registration, even with all other permits, is a person with an unregulated legal status.

Population dynamics of priority geostrategic Territories of Russia in 2010-2018

The article presents an analysis of the dynamics of the population of the priority geostrategic territories of the Russian Federation. They are highlighted in the "Strategy for the Spatial Development of the Russian Federation until 2025" as territories that are of particular importance for the development of the country as a whole and are distinguished at the same time by special life conditions and the functioning of the economy due to their geographical location. Population dynamics for such territories is both a factor determining socio-economic development and an indicator of the effectiveness of this development. The components of the population dynamics - natural growth and migration flows - are of particular importance. The article describes all four groups of priority geostrategic territories of Russia - isolated from the main territory of the country (exclaves), located in the North Caucasus and the Far East, in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. For each group, trends in population dynamics have been identified since the 2010 census, taking into account the components of natural growth and migration. The multidirectional aspect of the main demographic processes in the priority geostrategic territories of the country is revealed - natural growth is combined with the migration outflow of the population, and the migration inflow - with natural decline. At the same time, in the exclave and North Caucasian territories, the population is growing, and in the Far Eastern and Arctic territories it is decreasing. The features of both groups of priority geostrategic territories in comparison with Russia as a whole and of individual constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities within groups of territories are shown. The latter became possible due to the use of the database "Municipal Russia", that summarises demographic statistics for all urban districts and municipal areas of the country, including those located in priority geostrategic territories. As a result of the analysis of the population dynamics, directions have been identified that can lead to an improvement in the demographic situation in the priority geostrategic territories of the country, and, accordingly, will contribute to the socio-economic development of not only these territories, but the entire Russian Federation

Review of methodological approaches to the analysis of the transformation of the agricultural labor market in modern Russia

The article provides an overview and generalization of Russian studies of the transformation of the agricultural labor market in the post-Soviet period. Researchers of the Russian countryside reflect the obtained results in publications mainly describing the problems associated with the Russian countryside and the agricultural labor market. This is, first of all, the destruction of the rural infrastructure, poverty, unemployment, the interaction of old and new production entities (agricultural enterprises, peasant farms, private household plots and agricultural holdings), the loss of communication between villagers and agricultural enterprises, the villagers models of social adaptation and labor behavior. These processes served as a methodological support for the analysis and empirical evidence of how consciously villagers have been changing social and labor practices under the pressure of institutional transformations and agricultural modernization. Based on the choice of rational behavioral models in the labor market, they transformed the social structure of the village under the pressure of the market economy values, new rules, norms and institutional requirements. Modern processes in the agro-industrial field in the context of the property transformation contributed to the formation of a new agrarian structure, constructed by new subjects. The new and old production subjects interact in a multi-structured economy. They are important “players” in the institutional field of the agricultural sector, thus influencing the social and structural processes in the labor market. This determined a new configuration of the social rural groups employed in the formal and informal sectors.

Social communication paradoxes in post-conflict societies

The article presents the results of a media-analytical study of information flows in Ukraine and in the “new” subjects of the Russian Federation – Crimea and Sevastopol. The relevance of the study of post-conflict societies is dictated by the fact that in the digital era, an effective military solution must be supported by participation in the formation of the information agenda and management of information flows. The cases of color revolutions allow to speak of communication as a factor in the formation of unconventional social attitudes. The results of the study carried out by the authors show that in the condition of the crisis in society, communication networks are formed often due to the external influence. Information flows of a post-conflict society are formed not only from real events of everyday life and the existing socio-political situation, but also focusing on a number of topics and discourses that must be present in the media field without fail. They act as information triggers, system trigger tools that form a different streaming of flows, which were differentiated by the authors as single – and multi-wave. The analysis of the identified flows, that represent communicative network structures, testifies to the different genesis of their emergence and functioning, but the determining factor in this process is the geopolitical request for the formation of media tracks. The authors come to conclusion that the information flows of post-conflict societies are communicative-political structures of a dual nature: they initially carry the ideas of an open and democratic society, but then form conflict situations in the civil and media fields.

Objective and subjective characteristics of the success of post-Soviet youth

The phenomenon of success is covered in many works of philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists who study this concept, the ethics of success and the pursuit of it in different social groups. However, achieving success as a special type of activity that is emerging in modern Russia remains largely outside the scope of empirical analysis. This article examines the genesis of the concept of "success" from antiquity to the present day, gives its definition as a subject of empirical research. The study was based on a survey conducted with the participation of the author among young Muscovites (25 - 30 years old). This age group was chosen because for sociological analysis the most interesting is the generational cohort that grew up and formed during the years of the liberal reformation, in a state and society that differ from the state and society of the Soviet type. In this age group, the most interesting are individuals who already have life experience and are implementing effective life strategies. Therefore, a group of Muscovites aged 25–30, who assess themselves as successful people, was selected for the analysis. The analysis of relevant social and socio-psychological characteristics of the group of respondents who define themselves as “successful” is carried out in comparison with the group of “losers”. Comparative analysis showed that these groups implement two life programmes: survival and success, determined by status (education, position, income) and socio-psychological characteristics (attitude to work, methods of selection and setting goals, the level of their implementation, type of rationality). Each of these programmes has its own behavioural logic. Thus, low labour motivation and activity of “losers”, their low production status and very limited material opportunities, dooming them to survival, form a model of social maladjustment that impedes the healthy development of the economy and society. On the contrary, success in life is based on a high personal and material interest in one's work, on dedication to work and financial independence. Personal ways of achieving success play an equally important role here: self-confidence, optimism; the ability to set simple and clear goals for oneself, to show perseverance in their implementation. At the same time, it was revealed that successful young Muscovites remain people who are able to correlate their own and other people's interests, when a person perceives his being not alienated from the existence of other people. This is a new socio-cultural type, combining traits of a social character that were not very compatible in the recent past, realising an ethically and socially safe model of life success.

Civilizational heterogeneity of Russia. Property in the field of civilizational development

The article considers the Russian civilization as a socio-cultural community that includes different civilizational formations, the fact that determines its heterogeneous nature. An indicator of the heterogeneity of a society is its social structure, with civilisational rifts present - such an opposition of individual structural elements that has a civilizational character. In modern Russia, three civilizational rifts can be recorded. The first of them is based on the existence in the country of different levels of technical and technological development and, accordingly, of the nature and content of laborur of the population. The second rift is due to the material differentiation of the society: from the standard of living (on the threshold and beyond the poverty threshold) to the possession of multibillion fortunes, that leads to a deep difference in the quality of life of the population, that is an attributive feature of various civilizations. The third rift is related to the historically uneven development of the regions. Along with the regions that have entered or are already at the informational stage of development (they are in minority), most of the regions are at the industrial stage, and in some regions, a pre-industrial agrarian society with stable traditional values ​​still prevails. Accordingly, informational, industrial and traditional subcivilizations coexist in the vastness of Russia. Property relations are considered among the significant factors of civilizational development. Property relations are first of all economic and juridical (legal) relations. Property as a social relation carries the historically stipulated content of the moral norms, justice, individual and social benefit. Property is embodied not only in legal forms, but also in customs, cultural patterns, habits, types of thinking and behavioral models. In Russia, the property right of an individual has always been oriented towards "internal justice", correlated in the public and individual consciousness with the prevailing ideas of the proper. Whereas in Western civilization there has been entrenched the priority of public relations based on the protected by law private interest of an individual. The reorientation of property relations in Russia to the Western model, including in the memory of our contemporaries, has not been a success due to the traditionally strong etacratic influences, the dominance of the “power-property” relationship.

Historical memory of the Great Patriotic War: reasons for pluralism

The article analyzes the results of a sociological study of the historical memory of students about the World War II in general (and the Great Patriotic War in particular), conducted by the Russian Society of Sociologists in 2020, as well as materials from surveys of other research teams. The author comes to the conclusion that historical memory is formed, first of all, by the information field, set by state institutions or encouraged by them (school, mass media, network resources). Contradictory assessment of the events of the twentieth century led to the rupture of the historical memory of generations and the formation of a large group of people ready to accept the revision of the geopolitical results of the war from the standpoint of history falsifiers. The attitude of young people to the past, without taking into account the cause-and-effect liaison of the events of that time, is explained not only by the extinction of communicative memory for the departure of war generations, the desacralization of their life, deed, death. The range of factors is much wider. Since there is no integral picture of the history of the USSR, there is no value core for assessing events of the Great Patriotic War either. In the absence of historical hygiene in the Russian Federation, the entire Soviet period turns into historical antiques for new generations. They treat this in different ways: with reverence, condescension, aggressiveness, indifference, but it is excessive for the daily life of the majority. The slogan “If required, we repeat / can repeat”, replicated on May 9, is nothing more than a short-term emotional reaction, including to PR management, but not the readiness / mindset / promise of action in a real war. The opposition of the state to the country, that is reflected in the popular among young people song of the group Lumen, actually testifies to alienation from both the state and the country, since there is no one without the other. Questions are inevitable: how adequate are the methodologies and techniques based on which social scientists choose the range of factors that form the portrait of modern youth and predict the direction of further socialization of its individual groups? How many meaningful collaborators should there be to lose / win a civilizational battle in which historical memory is only one of the components? According to the author, the conditions and opportunities for the realization of the desired worldview values ​​in modern Russia adjust the attitude to the present and the life strategies of young people to a greater extent than historical memory.

Life positions in self-regulation of life activity of the youth

Recently, the topic of the life positions of young people attracts more attention due to the activation of youth in the socio-political space of the society life: defending their right to participate in the formation of urban space, participation in volunteer and environmental movement, for the preservation of cultural heritage and values ​​of a various spectrum: from traditional to modern. The nature of these and other types of activity is regulated by a life position, reflecting the understanding by different groups of young people of themselves, the meaning of their life, their role in society. The article examines the essence of the life position of youth, the specifics of its formation within the existing semantic space of reality and the relationship with social activity. On the basis of the concept of socio-cultural self-regulation of life activity developed by the Center for Sociology of Youth of the Institute of Socio-Political Research FCTAS RAS and the data obtained in the course of the Center for Sociological Research, the author analyses the connection between the life position of young people and age, the level of material status and education, as well as with regional living conditions. The interconnection between the life positions of young people and their ideological attitudes towards individualism and collectivism, trust and distrust of others are described. By using structural and taxonomic modeling of the life process of young people, the interrelationships of their life positions with elements of the socio-cultural mechanism of self-regulation are considered. Thus, the author analyzes the connections between the core of the taxon of habitus of active and passive life positions of young people with archetypes, mental traits, modern features and life-meaning values, types of youth cultures. It has been established that the regulatory function of an active life position is realiszed through both traditional and modern elements of the self-regulation mechanism: by archetypes of glory and idealzation of the past, on the one hand, and rationalism, openness to everything foreign, attitude to the country as a place of residence, on the other. In turn, the regulatory function of a passive life position is predominantly formed under the influence of the conditions of the vital activities of the young people, and the role of youth types of culture and life-meaning values ​​is reduced to their awareness of the semantic content of the formed habitual attitude. The article also analyzes the indicators of the social activity of young people based on their connection with the worldview semantic attitudes.

(Non)Religious Diversity and correlation of religious, spiritual and secular in the consciousness of modern man

Non-religious diversity is growing in the world nowadays. In the current context it is understood not as a diversity of faiths, religions, non-religions, etc., but as a variety of types of non-religious consciousness and categories of non-religious identity. The article covers only a few aspects of this vast topic. First, the theoretical prerequisites and substantiations for the change in the Western non-religious identity taking place during the transition from the Westphalian to the post-Westphalian system of religious governance and the emergence of a special type of pluralism that is formed in the process of dedifferentiation of religion, globalization and the transformation of the “religion of place and nation” into a transnational religion “without place and nation”, when the ratio of religious, spiritual and secular in the mind of a postmodern person changes. Second, the author analyses the origins and causes of this transformation of non-religious consciousness in the "long 1960s". Third, the author traces the evolution of such types of non-religious diversity as “spiritual but not religious”, “none” and “post-protestants” and the concept of “spirituality” that connects them. The category "spiritual but not religious", sometimes perceived as dubious and unconvincing, appearing in the context of countercultural spirituality, in the author´s opinion, is very important for understanding Western, especially American irreligiousness in general and the processes taking place today in particular. The processes that are associated with the growth of "none" and the proliferation of "post-Protestants" related to the Woke culture, who claim the role of "saviours of humanity", attaching more importance to the "new post-Protestant ethics" (rather than religion and tradition), seeking to politicise religion, to sacralise politics, race and gender relations. Rejecting the "old religion" and proclaiming a "new ethics", moving from the ideals of diversity, universal tolerance and political correctness to "militant moralism and cruel dogmatism”, they confirm the idea of "complex irreligiousness" in the era of "late modernity", that seems to be a sign of the times and requires close attention of scientists.