Assessment of relationship between population's life attitudes and ideas about active longevity

The significance of identifying the factors determining the differentiation of the population’s perceptions of aging and active longevity is due to the key role of this aspect in assessing the prospects for the introduction of the active aging concept in Russian regions. The idea of active longevity in its most replicated version is closely related to the issues of increasing the elderly’s involvement in labor relations and directly affects aspects of the formation of citizens’ pension rights. This agenda is debatable, since the active longevity practices are perceived differently by representatives of different population groups. The state social policy at the regional and federal levels should be adapted to these realities. Only in this case it will be possible to achieve the goals of increasing the duration of healthy life and minimizing the negative effects of demographic aging. The relevance of the research topic, therefore, is determined by the current trends in the demographic development of Russia and its regions, associated with an increase in the elderly’s proportion in the population and decrease in fertility, as well as relatively little knowledge of the ideas and practices of active longevity in the context of socio-demographic groups. The purpose of the research is to study the population’s perceptions about longevity and aging in the context of their life attitudes and in the context of socio-demographic groups. Based on the materials of the sociological survey, we have proved that the respondents’ ideas about the elderly and the active longevity correlate with their ideas about their own social usefulness. We have shown that the longevity motives are differentiated in the respondents’ groups who feel their social usefulness differently. The highlighted features can be taken into account in order to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of the active longevity concept in Russia’s regions.