Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2016 number 3

This article analyses the changing place of family and children in life value priorities of the population of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Our research hypothesis is that the persistent significance offamily in the scale of life values is determined by the evolving family structure and completeness and increasing child-centrism. The article is based on the six sociological surveys conducted between 1993 and 2011 in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Such a long research period allowed us to trace the transformation of axiological views of the Yakuts on the value and importance of families and children in their lives. The classification of life values developed by the authors shows how significant each of the three designated groups is for confirming the hypothesis about the preservation of the traditional family lifestyle. We discover the differentiations of respondents' opinions on the competition between the values of family, socio-labor and personal orientations depending on the age, marital and social status of the survey participants. The main conclusion is that the family retains its priority in the lives of the Yakut population with an explicit child-centric orientation. For some young people social, labor, and personal orientations have little or no association with the family. There is a concern about their views on the existing forms of marriage, the relationship and obligations of spouses, and the desire to preserve their freedom.