Rural and urban youth: do the socio-cultural gaps remain?

Abstract

The purpose of this work is search for arguments for the validity of the hypothesis about leveling in the youth environment of the socio-cultural gaps traditional for urban and rural areas, realized in the family and social spheres of life. The work focuses on young people's ideas about territorial identity, cultural and leisure practices and forms of civic engagement, and the desirable form of partnership (marriage) relations. The information base of the study was survey data of young people aged 18-35 living in urban and rural areas of Vologda oblast. Youth is a socio-demographic group that forms the basis of the human potential of population. Globalization, digitalization, virtualization, large-scale projects for development of social infrastructure, road repairs and at the same time space compression (urbanization) significantly affect the worldview and lifestyle of young people. In addition, due to the successful experience of distance learning and employment formats, the impetus for the development of which was the COVID-19 pandemic, a hypothesis has arose about the convergence of the socio-cultural characteristics of urban and rural youth. In view of the consistently representative proportion of rural youth (a quarter of the group), the continuing centripetal nature of migration, and the importance of understanding the differences between urban and rural spaces, the study seems to be relevant for both theory and practice of youth policy. On the basis of sociological survey data, it was revealed that the urban and rural youth have similar views on family and marriage. Young people are focused on having few children and are tolerant of cohabitation. However, rural youth are more "family-oriented", when conditions are created, they are more ready for having many children and labile for support measures. Urban residents have a more pronounced territorial identity, although collectivism is more often manifested by rural residents. Further development of digitalization, new remote forms of education and employment, provision of public and other services, will facilitate holding back young people in rural areas, stimulate reurbanization (most likely, in suburbanization formats), thus reducing the socio-cultural gap between the city and the village.