Novye Issledovaniâ Tuvy (Jun 2018)
Career preferences of Tuva population in the context of economic culture
Abstract
Today Tuva lags behind most regions of the Siberian Federal district and Russia as a whole in many socio-economic parameters. Among the factors of this underachievement, experts name the lack of economic culture in the population of the Republic. One of the still unexplored aspects of this problem is the career preferences people have, and how they may be linked to their ethno-cultural identities. This topic has been studied on a wider Russian background, but not specifically in the case of Tuva. The purpose of the article is to identify the career preferences of Tuvans and Russians living in Tuva. For empirical material, the article uses the author's survey (held in 2016 in Kyzyl and a number of the region’s rayons, with a representative sample of 320 respondents). The survey is a continuation of studies G.F. Balakina and Z. V. Anaiban made at the beginning of the 1990s on the issues of social and cultural development of Tuva. The analysis of the responses collected revealed that career preference is given to those jobs and positions offering higher wages; the population has little interest in the jobs in the real economy; and public administration is seen as the most prestigious career path. Ethnic Tuvans find less attractive the jobs requiring tough regime of work (such as the ones in the industrial sector), and more attractive, those with a freer work schedule (research, teaching, medicine). Tuvans’ preference for agricultural professions is more than 4 times higher than that of the Russians in the region. About half of the Tuvan population (in the rural areas) prefers engaging in traditional occupations. Russian population’s list of most desirable occupations includes gardening and horticulture, livestock breeding at a personal farmstead, and crop farming. A significant part of Tuvan respondents want to graduate from a university, get a job and then continue their education. The outcomes of the survey confirm the conclusions made by other authors in their studies of the role of ethnic identity in the choice of profession, form of employment and education in Tuva. Career preferences of Tuvans and Russians living in the region have to some extent been influenced by the traditional values of these peoples, and these values, in their turn, inform both the choice of a career path and the choice of education.
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