Daily Activities of Urban Population: Adaptive Structuring of Time Resources and Equity in Opportunities

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the real behavior (time use) of urban employed population in everyday life, reflecting the strategies of their social adaptation. Based on our comprehensive research data (including time budget monitoring) “Daily activities of the urban population: time budget, values, social adaptation” examines the structuring of the time resource in the aspect of interpreting the economic and non-economic behavior of the employed population in 2019–2020. The analysis showed that the obtained average indicators of adaptation practices (even if we assume that the subject of activity perceives them as quite acceptable) are far from optimal. This conclusion applies not only to the household, the family, but it is also true from the point of view of sociocultural and economic goals of society, its demographic expectations and is supported by the results of cross-country comparison. The article emphasizes that the characteristics of free time are an integral indicator of the result of adaptive behavior in all spheres of daily activity and contain all the fi nal properties of gender injustice in the aspect of adaptive capabilities. The analysis of the dynamics of the time use of working citizens in 1986, 2007–2008, 2019–2020 revealed the connection of adaptive behavior in daily activities with the cyclical wave transformation of the environment external to the household. Despite the facts of aligning of values, needs with real behavior, by 2019–2020 there was rather a deterioration in the results of adaptation in terms of the country’s development objectives. The problems of work, everyday life, recreation and self-development as areas of daily activity of urban residents remain on the agenda and require attention.