Сareer Aspirations Of Socially Oriented Professional Groups In Russian Megalopolises

Abstract

At the present stage, state policy in Russia is changing its direction to labor expense reconsideration, implementation of social programs to support socially oriented professions. The reform of Russian spheres of education and health turns into bureaucratization and focuses on achieving formal performance indicators. Economic crisis leads to a massive decrease in purchasing power among the population, inequality between regions and exacerbate precariatization of social and labor relations. The article examines career orientations of representatives of socially oriented professional groups in Russian megacities in conditions of precariatization of social and labor relations. The empirical base of the research is the results of mass sociological surveys of more than three thousand employees of public schools and hospitals. The survey materials show that metropolitan teachers and doctors consider their career chances to be larger than in regional large cities. Satisfaction with career opportunities, in general, is higher for doctors than for teachers. The educators and doctors interviewed in megalopolises are concerned about the risks of increasing workload without wage growth and loss of work. In the health care sector, there is also an enclavization of precariatization risks in a regional environment, when the influence of precariatization in the capital is stronger than in the provinces. As a result, changes in career strategies of socially oriented professional groups are recorded and include the risks of precariatization, specifically, reduction of the influence of professional self-realization factor, awareness of weak career prospects due to the peculiarities of the career space in these professional segments.