STUDENT VIEWS ON DOWNSHIFTER LIFESTYLE IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The relevance of the article is due to the rethinking of employment by students and the emergence of new forms of income, due to the emergence of Internet resources. Today, more and more people are revising their work schedules, switching to freelancing or so-called free employment, reducing working hours. In this regard, this article is aimed at studying students' ideas about the lifestyle of downshifters in an urban environment.
 Methodology: As a research methodology, a qualitative approach was applied using ethnographic strategies to dive into the world of everyday practices of informants and better understand how their daily lives are structured, which is especially important when studying ideas about lifestyle. A detailed description of the ideas about individual everyday practices allows us to identify the type in a social phenomenon. Method of information gathering - in-depth interview, which allows determining the main motives and beliefs of informants.
 Results: The article revealed that in the view of the majority of students, downshifters are satisfied with their lifestyle; travel a lot; have a low civil position, mainly carry out their household activities in solitude and are not married. It is shown that work for downshifters, in the view of students, should be enjoyable, and if this is not possible for any reason, it is fair for them to do work that does not lead to emotional and physical exhaustion. In the students' views, five groups of downshifters were identified: those who left well paid but stressful work; having the ability to work remotely; devoting more time to personal development; peaked careers and decided to change the profile of activity; transformed their hobby into a profession.
 Applications of this study: The data obtained in the work can be used in the field of labor and employment of young people, social psychology, the psychology of education, age psychology, sociology, as well as for further theoretical development of this issue.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: Because the phenomenon of downshifting is not sufficiently studied, and the concept has no clear definition, many people in the society can call themselves downshifters who are not really downshifters indeed, and Vice versa, many people do not realize themselves downshifters, being downshifters in fact. This seems to be a certain problem for studying this social group.