How do Family Characteristics Affect the Type of Leisure for Russian Preschoolers?

One of the main Russian governmental programs nowadays is related to development of educational sphere by actively involving preschoolers in the educational organizations. The educational inequality among children begins to emerge as soon as they enter school and develops further. In attempt to prevent this inequality, most of the parents seek to ensure a better future for their children. On the one hand, some parents choose different activities for their child, delegate the educational process, and form active leisure outside the home. On the other hand, some parents use independent methods of forming preschool leisure, choose alternative and effective educational activities. Some families face a shortage of places in educational institutions, while others do not even seek to involve preschoolers in such organizations. Therefore, this research is focused on the characteristics of the family and how do them influence on the activities. The main aim is to understand which socio-demographic factors influence the types of leisure among preschoolers the most. In order to achieve this goal quantitative methodology is used. All data is be taken from the RLMS - The Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. The study is based on data from parents’ and children’s questionnaires. Children aged 3-7 years who do not attend school (as well as those who are not home-schooled) was be selected. The typology of preschoolers` leisure was created with the usage of Cluster and Factor analysis. It includes 4 main groups of activities – passive leisure, outdoor games and painting and music classes, home leisure, sport and art classes. After that, three lineal regressions were crated in order to create the models. As a result, we have identified the most influential socio-demographic factors for each type of leisure. The presence of a land plot and living in the regional center has the greatest impact on street activity, sports and music. The age of the child, as well as living in rural and urban-type settlements, most of all determines the sports, creative and educational activities of a preschooler. For home leisure, the defining characteristics were education in any preschool and per capita income. Within the framework of this study, there are several limitations that are important to mention. Firstly, there is a bias in the sample in the RMLS towards less poor strata, which is why the data are representative closer to less well-off families, so that children in the database will be less involved in preschool educational activities, since family income affects the intensity. Secondly, the children's questionnaire of the RMLS database initially includes a grouping of leisure activities, as mentioned earlier, that is, creative or sports activities are combined, it is impossible to separate and look at each specific activity. Thirdly, the quality of regression models varies from 4.5% to 13%, reflecting a low level of impact description. Within the framework of this study, significant characteristics were found, but it is impossible to assert with great accuracy the complete correctness of the results obtained.