Family Values Among Youth:a Factor Analysis of the Survey
The article addresses the results of a sociological investigation carried out in Saratov, Russia. The investigation is aimed at studying the youth's opinion on family values. The results showed that 83% of the studied families are free from violence and alcoholism and 81% demonstrate mutual trust. The youth take an interest in their families (79%) if mutual understanding and assistance dominate their family relations (77%), if children are respected as well as parents (76%), and if family conflicts are rare (68%).Of the sample, 5 - 12% indicate the lack of all those characteristics in their own families, but 9 - 10% report the occasional presence of these characteristics. In other words, only 2/3 of the families provide the ideal atmosphere that promotes positive youth socialisation. The family socialisation of one fifth of the young generation is more or less destructive.It is revealed that the higher a family's income level is, the less strictly the youth in that family treat family values. Moreover, in such families, the level of conventionality is lower and the number of young people that absolutely ignore family values is less. The higher the consumption level of the family is, the more significant the role of traditions in the formation of youth habits is. In this, the poorest and the most well-todo categories of Saratov youth evaluate their levels of conventionality as equally high. Girls more often than young men prefer to stay at home, regard family traditions more highly, report mutual respect among relatives, and stress situational protection within the family. Young men evaluate their staying at home and the level of mutual understanding situationally or negatively. The younger the person is, the more he/ she wishes to spend time outside. Over the course of time, young people come to feel their habits' dependence on family values more strongly. Younger people explain this influence from the situational or hostile point of view.This implies the strengthened targeting of measures aimed at the formation of concrete family traditions among youth. To sum up, the introduction of healthy family life ideology and an increase in the cultural level, particularly in the context of intra-family generations' mutual activity, lead to overcoming depopulation tendencies in Russian society.