Family potential as a component of the human potential of Russian regions

The purpose of the study is to present family potential as a structural component of human potential with the core of family potential consisting of marriages, primarily registered. In the period between the All-Russian censuses of 2002, 2010, 2020 there was a decrease in the number of married people in the country: the number of married people decreased in 2020 as compared to 2002 by 7839 thousand people (12.6%). The proportion of married men decreased by 11.8%, among women the decrease was 11.4%. The largest decrease occurred between the censuses of 2010 and 2020: - 9.9% for male cohorts and - 9.5% for female cohorts. Approaches to analysis of human potential usually do not include the indicators that form family potential, or reduce it only to reproductive function. At the same time, formation of families, their number and quality is of fundamental importance when considering human potential, as it reflects the state of social solidarity, which is formed also in families. The article analyzes the indicators of marriage and divorce in the regions of the Russian Federation, presents the factors affecting them, and gives the author’s definition of family potential. It is shown that the social policy in the Russian Federation is mainly related to measures to increase the birth rate, which, apart from the impact on the sphere of family and marriage relations, does not bring positive results. At the same time, the most important task is formation of social values aimed at increasing strong families based on the values of matrimony.