New Opportunities for Involving Universities in the Demographic Agenda: a Regional Case

Recent changes in the state demographic policy, which have widely included the student community in their orbit, pose new challenges for universities. In the state program “Family” within the framework of the federal program “Family Support”, students are identified as a target group. The indicators that measure the activity of universities in this area are included. Regional programs aimed at increasing the birth rate have also recently introduced measures aimed at supporting the family-parent trajectory of students – student (family) capital, compensation for housing costs, etc. The aim of the study was to identify new opportunities for universities to be included in the demographic agenda through a mechanism for informing students about the involvement of business in mitigating the demographic problems of an industrial region. We surveyed students of the last two full-time courses of higher education in the Chelyabinsk region, a region where student (family) capital for the birth of a child was introduced in 2024, where a number of industrial enterprises have long been implementing measures to support workers’ families, where the lowest regional birth rate in the Ural Federal District is observed. A series of studies (questionnaire, essay) was conducted in October–November 2024 at two major universities in the region. The results showed that students’ awareness of corporate support measures for family workers is a significant factor correlating with their productive orientations: the more aware students are of support measures, the more children they plan to have. This opens up a new tool for involving universities in the demographic agenda of the country and regions. Recommendations have been developed aimed at building the systematic work of employers, universities and authorities to integrate information on corporate demographic measures into the mental and practical context of youth.