#1
Trud
No. 192
2001
[translation for personal use only]
SOCIOLOGICAL PORTRAIT OF RUSSIA'S RISING GENERATION
Still "green" in recent estimate, the young lions aged 28-30, who have a brilliant economic and business education and speak fluent English, more and more frequently rise to key positions in Russian and transnational companies. They are the bright examples of Russia's rising generation.
But there are other young people. The two and a half million drug addicts and the thousands who died of OD and chronic alcoholics are our young people, too. Such contrast seems incredible, but the comparison can be continued. Hundreds of thousands of initiative young businessmen are developing small companies vital for Russia, while tens of thousands of their peers form criminal groups, stealing, burglarising flats and extorting money by racket. A checkerboard of black and white mosaic.
And so it is not quite clear what our young people look like after all. In what ways do they differ from the boys and girls who lived in the Soviet Union? And how do they feel in this complicated modern period? Trud political analyst Vitaly GOLOVACHEV put these and other questions to Prof. Yuri LEVADA, director of the National Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM).
Question: How do our young people look in the sociological mirror?
Answer: They are free from old fears and old interests alike. The young people don't have to destroy or negate anything, because they have no past. The country buried its past in 1991 and we do not have the continuity of generations that is normal in industrialised countries. Any economic and social changes proceed almost unnoticed and very gradually in stable foreign societies. They have their traditions, customs and socially accepted rules. But we moved from an abyss to a precipice in the past decade. And this greatly influenced the development of inner values and behaviour of the rising generation.
Young people today are free not only from old fears, but also frequently of any respect for law. Polls show that many of them think tax evasion and graft, let alone bilking in municipal transport, a normal thing. Other negative characteristics of a considerable part of the rising generation are a cynical attitude to the world and its moral values, and cruelty, which I see as a hypertrophied reflection of the cruelty of our society.
On the other hand, there are positive elements. Our young people are better informed than we were in the past decades, they feel free and highly sociable. The Internet erased all borders and opened up the vast world to them. The young freely converse with their foreign peers and cannot imagine that "contacts with foreigners" were monitored by special services in their fathers' time. Foreigners in Russia were something like extra-terrestrials then.
It is very good that most respondents are self-confident and highly assess their abilities and prospects. They can really earn money and work for their goals, and are trying to become the masters of their life.
Question: So, young people are quickly adjusting to new realities?
Answer: Not all of them. Twenty percent of the respondents said they were "mostly or completely" dissatisfied with life. (About as many said the material situation of their family was bad or very bad.) However, over a third of the respondents aged 18-29 sounded optimistic; they are more or less satisfied with the current state of affairs. Another 42% of the respondents gave relatively positive answers. Their life "is partially satisfactory and partially not satisfactory." In other words, 77% of young respondents found their "fulcrum," in one manner or another. This is the highest adjustment figure compared to other age groups.
It is indicative that a half of young respondents spoke up for further market reforms and only 7% are against them. Nearly three times more respondents from the 30-49 year age group said "No" to reforms. And respondents from the over 50 group are even more resolute: 33% of them are firmly against further reforms. This is understandable, as senior citizens are in the worst situation.
Question: The tempo of life has become very rapid in the past few years. Do our boys and girls grow up and join the "adult" life quicker now?
Answer: Strangely enough, the situation is quite opposite. Many of them are not in a hurry to marry, living with their parents much longer than their peers in Soviet times did. There are discernible dependent attitudes (although young people now have more possibilities for breaking out of their parents' care). Not all of them remain infantile too long, yet infantilism is very widespread now.
On the other hand, young people have few paternalist illusions. We asked them "On what largely depends prosperity?" A half of the respondents replied: "on yourself." The bulk of respondents above 55 years of age said "the prosperity of citizens depends largely on the country's leadership." That poll graphically showed radical differences in the thinking of young people and their parents and grandparents, the long evolutionary road covered by the country in the past decade. That period saw the collapse of old stereotypes traditional for the regime that has become a thing of the past and the development in the rising generation of new attitudes and a realistic psychology adequate to new realities.
Question: Do they act on the "Everything depends on me" principle? Are the graduates of secondary, vocational and higher schools prepared to take any job?
Answer: No. Many of them have high demands. They want success, a high income; they want "to live better than others do." However, they are not always enthusiastic and willing to work, regarding their jobs in a shallow and not too serious manner. I would say that many of them do not know how, and don't want to work. This is why the personnel policy of commercial firms changed its focus from the young to people who are approaching middle age, who have experience and old-time training. They are more reliable and diligent.
Question: What are the political and party likes of our young people?
Answer: Most of them are apolitical. This is one more surprising quality of our young people. This political indifference can be explained by the general indifference of young people to everything that does not directly concern them. There is a word for this: "unconcern." "What do I care?" they say. "Nothing to do with me." And this is their exact attitude to parties. In 1999, only 4% of respondents in that age group planned to vote for communists and 9%, for democrats. The situation is roughly the same now.
Question: But this picture clashes with what we saw at the government building in August 1991, when many young Muscovites came to defend democracy, ready to stop tanks with their bodies.
Answer: I remember those days very well. But you are talking about the young people who live in the capital, who are more "advanced" than their peers who live in other regions. It would be wrong to think that something like that could take place in a provincial town, let alone township. Besides, much has changed since then. If democracy needed to be protected in 1999, there would have been few young people among its defenders. Rather, it would have been 45-55 year-olds, who constitute a part of the 25% of the democratically minded respondents, who would come to the rescue of democracy.
The apolitical character of the young people is best seen during elections. Only 30-40% of them vote at all, while the figure for senior age groups, which are strongly influenced by communists, is 70%. If we analyse election results, we will see that the left-wing tilt is due to the activity and better organisation of senior age groups.
Question: However apolitical, it is the young people who mostly support Vladimir Putin, as your polls show.
Answer: The explanation is not only the policy pursued by the president (although the young people clearly like the liberal and pro-market nature of his reforms), but also the young people's sympathy for the young and energetic leader. "He is just like us," many of the respondents said. "He likes sports, can take a weekend ski trip to the mountains, he behaves normally and has a ready answer to everything, and he doesn't trample on freedoms." As many as 72% of this age group "fully or rather" trust Vladimir Putin and every third respondent admire or like him.
Question: And what do they think about democratic parties' leaders?
Answer: The young people's interest for these parties and their leaders is steadily dwindling. Here is the confidence rating (based on results of polls held in this age group): Grigory Yavlinsky 9%, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada 7%. This is a sad picture, for democrats are losing young voters.
Question: How far does the political apathy of young people go? Would they accept authoritarian methods of government?
Answer: Yes, the bulk of them would calmly accept it. At least the polls show there would be no protest demonstrations.
Question: Not long ago Russia was said to have the largest readership. Today few people in this country subscribe to newspapers (whose prices jumped several times) or read books. How much of this is true of young people?
Answer: There is nothing to boast about in this sphere. Twelve percent of the respondents said they hardly ever read fiction; 25% either never read newspapers or read them once a month. Here is an example of the current dramatic cultural situation: 60% of the respondents from this age group never go to theatres or concerts. It is widely believed that young people spend their free time in disco clubs or cafes. But this is not quite true. Only a third of teenagers and older young people regularly visit them. A half of the respondents never go there. As for positive elements, they like sports (20% of the respondents go in for sports regularly) and computers.
This is the mosaic picture of our young people, as contradictory as our life in general. Some senior citizens actively dislike young people, while other see more positive than negative features in them. But disputes are useless, as the young people are what they are. We should neither dramatise nor simplify the situation. In point of fact, we are seriously worried by the quick spread of drugs and growing crime among young people. We can only hope that society and the authorities will have the strength, the will and resolve to stop the growth of these diseases to epidemic proportions.
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