The Prestige Of Parenting By Parents' Assessment: Evidence From Russia

In Russia, the unattractiveness of family lifestyle has been increasing recently. Parenting is considered as a source of social risk and inequality that questions its prestige and significance as a social achievement. This paper is aimed at identifying the factors that correlate with the parents' assessment of parenting prestige.We have interviewed 500 parents living in the Ural region. We have used a correlation analysis to reveal the relationship between content of parental motivation and system of respondents' values and non-parametric criteria to compare the groups of respondents.We arrived at the following conclusions: 1) the prestige of parenting in Russia is low; 2) the assessment of children's role in the hierarchy of values and the respondents' understanding of how children influence the social status of parents are related to a type of parental motivation; 3) an attitude of parents' social environment to the presence of children is not related to parents' assessment of parenting prestige.The conclusions show a need to promote the idea of parents' high social status, the prestige of parenting as a kind of labour, advantages of family lifestyle in the Russian society and positive image of parenting among youth.