Economic Practices of a Rural Lifestyle in Russia and Colombia: A Sociological Analysis

The article analyzes the lifestyle activities of the rural population of Russia and Colombia in the economic sphere. The possibility of comparing data for both countries, provided by similar methods of statistical observations adopted by the statistical agencies of both countries, and the unified principles of organizing a sociological study conducted by the authors, is shown. The features of rural economic and economic practices identified through indicators of the labor market and employment are revealed. In Russia, these are the dominance of wage employment to the detriment of entrepreneurship, the high proportion of informal self-employment, in which agricultural activity predominates (with its systemic reduction in the official labor market), the growth of pendulum labor migration to cities. In Colombia, there are a steady dominance of agricultural activity in the field of rural employment, a high proportion of laborers and small non-agricultural businesses, usually informal, high employment of women in the household, and an increase in permanent labor migration to cities. It has been established that the main motivational factors of rural lifestyle practices are determined by living conditions and are the same in Russia and Colombia; are objective and rational. These include, first of all, the location of the village: proximity to the city everywhere promotes a plurality of labor strategies; changes in welfare and employment structure: abandonment of agricultural activities, job loss, low incomes stimulate self-employment, entrepreneurial activity and labor migration (pendulum and permanent) to cities. Rational, objectively conditioned motives lead to the emergence of essentially identical lifestyle practices, which may differ in forms and frequency of manifestation, reflecting national specificity. It is shown that a change in the external socio-economic environment causes a similar rational socio-behavioral reaction in rural society, regardless of national characteristics.