Tsvetaeva N.N. From Tradition to Individualization: Autobiographical Narratives about Changes in Family and Gender Relations. Peterburgskaya sociologiya segodnya [Petersburg sociology today], 2018, Issue 10, pp. 185-203.

Abstract

The results of a number of studies show the non-linear nature of the global process of demographic modernization and raise questions about the contradictory of this process in its various manifestations. The article presents the results of qualitative research that make it possible to supplement some of the characteristics of this process in the Russian context. On the basis of autobiographical narratives of women of two generations, the features and dynamics of family and gender relations in the post-Soviet period are analyzed. The article discusses the following issues: the stability of traditional norms and values in family and gender relations, the contradictory combination of traditional norms and values with the egalitarian attitudes of Soviet emancipation, the contradictions between women's views about family and gender relations and the real practices of their family life. The author concludes that in the post-Soviet period, there are changes in women's views on family and gender relations. This is the intensification of pragmatic orientations and independence of women in these relations. The author interprets these changes as one of the defining trends in the global process of demographic modernization, as an intensifying trend to individualize the private life of modern man.