Value bases of the professional activity of the Belarusian student youth

Student youth is a social group with high intellectual and innovative potential, which is in demand in the national economy. The most important factors in one’s work activity are value orientations concerning life priorities, educational and professional strategies, attitudes to work and other ways of earning income. In sociology, various methods of measuring the relationship between cultural variables and economic behavior are widely used. The article presents the data on the value orientations of Belarusian students, their ideas about professional future, important characteristics of work, life goals and means for achieving them, i.e. factors that determine the strategies of the youth’s work behavior. The possibility of using such data in the educational and scientific activities of higher education institutions in the formation of students’ professional and economic culture determines the practical significance of the study. It is based on the sociological survey of Grodno students conducted in 2024 within the framework of the BRFFR-RSF project “Youth of Russia and Belarus about themselves: Economic and social-­cultural challenges of the present and construction of future horizons for cooperation” (N = 1000). The data reflects the hierarchy of students’ life values, their subjective well-­being, professional plans, ideas about the means for achieving success and the most important characteristics of work. The author emphasizes the contradictions in the worldview of the youth: on the one hand, students focus on their competencies and efforts in finding a job, realizing their abilities and career advancement, which will contribute to their professional activity; on the other hand, the desire to achieve quick success, inflated expectations, unstable motivation for work and susceptibility to the influence of external factors negatively affect the work of younger generations. The article concludes about the problems and risks that the youth face in their professional activities and the role of the state in promoting employment of the youth.