Abstract

The modern development of social integration of student youth into the socio-cultural environment of a large city is characterised by the following: growing contradictions between the demand for and supply of youth labour; deformed regional, industry and sectoral employment structures; complicating the process of engaging students in productive labour activity; imperfection of the mechanism of state regulation of youth employment. The sociological approach to analysing the integration of student youth into the socio-cultural environment of a large city is to study the labour market as a social organism consisting of many social groups, each of which, in addition to common ones, has its own specific needs, interests, and value orientations that determine its behaviour at both the micro and macro levels in the market environment. It was concluded that employment occupies a specific place in the system of students’ life priorities: on the one hand, it provides an opportunity to achieve financial independence through a successful career and brings pleasure if it is associated with a job they love, and on the other hand, work itself does not guarantee social integration in a big city. The data analysis allowed us to conclude that the appreciation of work by senior students is associated with certain peculiarities: for girls, work, despite its importance, is not the main thing in life, and for boys, it and (especially) its results are sometimes the dominant evidence of social integration.