The Ukrainian Family in the Conditions of War

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the problems and risks for the Ukrainian family, which is the basic institution of society, in the conditions of the Russia’s war against Ukraine, and its role in preserving the human potential of country. The study is based on information from open sources, expert assessments, data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, and sample survey materials. The research was carried out using such methods as comparative analysis, generalization and induction, survey, system approach. The family is a primary and main center of society, which ensures the physical (biological) and sociocultural reproduction of generations of the human community. In recent decades, the development of the family in Ukraine took place in the same direction as in other European countries. Russia’s war against Ukraine deformed the natural processes of life and development of the Ukrainian family. Great human losses, the destruction of the environment necessary for life (housing, social and economic infrastructure, natural environment), forced mass migration made it extremely difficult to implement the main specific functions of the family (child-bearing, upbringing, and maintenance of children), but activated its protective function. Family practices in the conditions of war and forced migration testify to powerful family ties and their special importance in the crisis period. In the conditions of war and the socio-economic disorganization caused by the war, family becomes a support: family solidarity, mutual assistance, care, the exchange of activities and material resources between family members allow to sustain living, and sometimes to protect life. A significant part of the forced migrants, who left the dangerous areas, receive assistance, and often move to relatives in safe regions of the country. Socio-psychological functions of the family acquire protective character. At the same time, the war aggravated the problems of Ukrainian family and provoked new risks. The consequence of the full-scale war was the reduction and deformation of the marriage potential and negative changes in the marriage and family structure of the population: an increase in the number of widowed; single-parent families and families where children live without parents with relatives; single people of the oldest age. The increase in the number of orphans and children deprived of parental care (whose parents have died, are in captivity, forcibly deported, their whereabouts are unknown, etc.) is one of the most serious consequences of the war. Weakening of marital relations due to mobilization and large-scale migration with gender disproportions may lead to an increase in divorce rates in the future. An increase in the number of single-child families among families with children is to be expected, although its significant growth was a problem even in the pre-war years. The changes in the Ukrainian family may be fully understood only a few years after the end of the war.