Younger generation as a socio-demographic category: theoretical aspect

The article considers scientific approaches to the concept “generation” and its classification and specifies the socio-economic category “younger generation”. The concept “generation” is present in many fields of science dealing with the problems of society’s development. However, there is no single definition. Basically, the choice of the criterion for its description depends on goals and objectives, pursued by the scientist and is limited by the sphere of scientific knowledge. The problems of development of generations have been studied by I.V. Bestuzhev-Lada, M.B. Glotov, B. Dubin, E.I. Ivanova, T.V. Lisovskaya, J. Ortega y Gasset, A.P. Roslavskii-Petrovskii, K. Mannheim, V.V. Semenova, S.I. Ulitskii, B.C. Urlanis, etc. A certain age boundary (older, middle-aged and younger) is one of the featuires of belonging to a generation. The scientific literature has no clear definition of the category “younger generation”. It is found out that the younger generation is inextricably linked with the human life period, such as “childhood”. However, problems arise due to multiple periodizations and ambiguity of the definition of age boundaries of childhood. As a result it becomes difficult to conduct a comparative analysis using the achievement of scientists in various fields of knowledge. In this regard, the author clarifies the concept “younger generation” as a socio-demographic group of the population aged up to 17. It consists of several groups with different characteristics (up to 12 months, pre-preschool children, preschool children, primary school pupils, teenagers) and differs from other groups by hereditary level of health, physiological immaturity, financial dependence (children dependent on parents or the state), composition of agents (peers, parents, teachers), socialization institutions (family, school, state, etc.) and needs. The necessity to use this concept is caused, on the one hand, by the possibility of interdisciplinary research (e.g., medical, sociological, economic) and, on the other hand, by the use of scientific results from different fields of knowledge.