MEDICAL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD CHILDFREE PHENOMENON

One of the determinants of the birth rate trends is value system and attitudes of the population, especially young people. Increasingly building a successful career, achieving high social status and financial independence become the priorities of modern youth. The presence of children in this case could considered being a hindrance in achieving these goals. The emergence of the childfree phenomenon indicates the processes of changing the family-value orientations of the population. With the aim to analyze the attitude of the medical university students to the childfree phenomenon in dynamics, we conducted surveys among Sechenov University students in 2009 and 2019. A comparative analysis of the survey results allowed us to make conclusions about a decrease in the number of students with chronic diseases (54.0% and 63.9% respectively deny the presence of chronic diseases), a decrease in the number of students with bad habits (31.0% and 14.5% of students smoke, 16.0% and 9.2% drink alcohol, respectively), a decrease in the number of students with children from 20.0% to 2.3%, as well as an increase in the number of students who are not ready for independent childrearing from 59.0% to 76.2%. In addition, our findings show an increase in number of students aware about childfree phenomenon (from 36.0% to 84.8%) and a more loyal attitude towards it among students (3.0% in 2009 and 18.5% of students in 2019).

childfree phenomenon, medical students, demographic situation