youth

2024. Vol.9. №3.

Rural labor market: Agricultural education, agrarian involvement and rural settlement of younger workers

Oct 25 2024

Fadeeva O. P. Rural labor market: Agricultural education, agrarian involvement and rural settlement of younger workers // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 204-228.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-204-228

Annotation

In the past two decades, the transformation of the agricultural sector of the Russian economy has significantly changed the situation in the rural labor market. Its supply has not met the employers’ requests, since they focus on the latest technological base of agricultural production. The traditional confidence in the labor surplus in rural areas has gradually lost its relevance, and representatives of the municipal authorities and agribusiness admitted the shortage of workers and gaps in specialized education. Moreover, the personnel shortage has become predominantly structural: there are not enough workers in certain, in-demand specialties. Based on the data of the indepth interviews with employers, the article examines the main barriers to meeting the demand for qualified specialists in the agricultural sector. The author describes possibilities and features of the potential labor supply due to the influx of the youth by summarizing the data of the survey conducted at one of the largest agricultural universities in Russia, focusing on students’ professional motivation and future employment. The difficulties in attracting and retaining younger workers are determined by the need to consider and solve problems within the implemented and planned changes in the spatial development model — from an integrated and initiative transformation of rural areas to the development of large-scale “rural agglomerations”. Based on the student opinions, the author makes some practical conclusions about possible changes in agricultural education and rural development policy.

Keywords

Rural labor market, agricultural employment, youth, higher and secondary vocational education, rural lifestyle, integrated development of rural areas, rural agglomerations.

About the author

Olga P. Fadeeva, PhD (Sociology), Head of Department, Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Ac. Lavrentyeva Prosp., 17, Novosibirsk, 630090.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Additional Info

Submitted Thursday, 01 August 2024
Reviewed Thursday, 12 September 2024
Copyright © Auhtors, 2024
Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2023. Vol.8. №1.

The conflict of generations in the spiritual sphere of rural society in the second half of the 1920s

May 30 2023

Slezin A.A. The conflict of generations in the spiritual sphere of rural society in the second half of the 1920s // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 45-66.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-45-66

Annotation

The author identifies the anti-religious aspects of the Soviet “turning to the village” policy, focusing on the main directions in the evolution of anti-religious activities of the communist youth in the mid-1920s and on the changes in the value orientations of peasant generations in the critical period of the Russian history. The study aims at assessing the peasantry’s reaction to the “revolutionary turn” generation (born at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries) activities and the reasons for the generational conflict, based on the analysis of the spiritual sphere of the Russian village. The author argues that this conflict turned into an intergenerational gap in the Russian village, which is an understudied aspect of the village split into antagonistic camps, used by the Party leadership to accelerate socialist modernization. The anti-religious activities of communist organizations after the “turning to the village” policy seemed to significantly soften forms and methods of the work with the peasantry, but a more thorough analysis shows that such activities remained a powerful factor of the conflict. For instance, value orientations of peasant generations were becoming more different. The spiritual legacy, which the “revolutionary turn” generation was to pass on to its successors, was rejected by the younger generation. The “new faith” completely denied the old traditions and irreconcilable theomachism. Peasants of the “revolutionary turn” generation expressed their attitude to anti-religious activities in the form of hooliganism, and radical measures were a response. The study of the national youth movement (including the negative one) and of the features of the intergenerational conflict in the Russian village are of particular relevance in the search for an educational model that meets the contemporary demands of the state and society.

Keywords

Peasants, religion, generations, revolutionary turn, youth, Komsomol, intergenerational gap, “turning to the village” policy, atheist alliance, NEP.

About the author

Anatoly A. Slezin, DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St., 106/5, Tambov, 392000.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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