Psychological aspects of social mobility of modern youth

The paper presents the modern approaches to the research of social mobility, in particular, of Russian youth. It is determined that the key aspects of the process of social mobility of an individual are the presence of certain psychological features and external objective factors that stimulate the transition of an individual from one social group to another. The role of value orientations, behavior motivation, interests, needs, perception features, level of education as well as the impact of mass media and belonging to a certain stratum on the possibility of social mobility of the younger generation are revealed. It is emphasized that higher education is a tool of vertical mobility, which forms labor values that generate labor activity and professional growth, is not in demand in the present reality due to the ongoing transformations in the economy. However, ambiguous access to development resources exacerbates inequality of opportunities for social mobility. The continuing orientation to the achievable type of values among young people, paired with discrimination on a basis of professional interests occurring in the existing realities, lack of demand, economic and social marginality, forms deprivation, lack of confidence, and generates social deviations.