The factors of birth of second child in contemporary Russia: The analysis of sociological survey results
The article considers the factors determining the orientation of Russians in relation to the birth of second child in single-child families. The analysis is based on the sociological survey data of the first wave of the All-Russian survey “The Demographic Well-being of Russia”, carried out at the turn of 2019 - in the beginning of 2020 by the research team headed by Professor Rostovskaya T. K. The emphasis on the determination of namely second births is determined by the fact that it is just this determination that has social psychological and social economic character, while the dynamics of indices of first births is primarily associated with changes in nuptiality. Moreover, the two children continues to be the modal value of the ideal, the desired and the expected number of children in Russia and in the most other economically developed countries. The conclusions of the study are based on the distribution of respondents according a number of characteristics that stand as factors of second births. The analysis demonstrated that a more expressed orientation to the birth of second child occurs with relatively greater value of two children, perception of it as a factor contributing to marriage consolidation, significantly greater first of all in women. The importance of such motives for the birth of second child as strong desire in male spouse and desire to have an infant in the family again is emphasized. Besides, the results of the study demonstrated that high valuation of the standard of living promotes the formation of intention to have second child, without any delaying of its birth, but only among those ones who want to have one. It is established that the second births rate is effected by both the demographic factors (age and marital status), social factors (education level, the number of children in families of parents and friends, the nearest environment) and social psychological factors, motives of second child birth and the system of values of Russians. In the context of implementation of the strategy of family demographic policy, it is important that probability of second births is effected primarily by the improvement of quality of medical institutions functioning, development of personal services and provision of preferential credits depending on the number of children in family.