The social protection aspect of the subjective assessment of the material security of large and foster families: the results of a comparative qualitative study

Karpikova Irina Serafimovna PhD in Economics Associate professor, Department of Sociology and Psychology, Baikal State University 664003, Russia, Irkutskaya oblast', g. Irkutsk, ul. Lenina, 11 ikarpikova@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Justification of the research question.

In recent years, the current negative demographic trends in the field of fertility and the targets of Russian social policy have put forward the task of comprehensive support for families with children as a priority, which is confirmed by the analysis of modern social legislation. In recent years, on the one hand, legal norms have been significantly updated to meet the basic needs of families with children, on the other hand, new forms of support unprecedented in content have appeared, which include maternal (family) capital, preferential mortgage lending, various targeted social benefits ^[1-3]. In addition, there is not only an expansion of the circle of beneficiaries in the system of support for institutions of motherhood and childhood, certain categories of families, but also a constant increase in the volume and size of these social benefits.

Thus, in recent years, the task of social policy has been actively solved to remove families with children from the zone of social risk – "sliding" into a situation of low income, repeatedly considered in the scientific literature ^{[2, 4-6]}. This situation is especially typical for a separate category of families, in which the state is largely interested in increasing the size from the perspective of the current demographic situation – large families. According to statistics, there are currently about 2.2 million large families in Russia ^[7], and their number has almost doubled over the past 10 years ^[8], which in a certain way indicates the success of state-implemented measures to support families with children.

Within the framework of the issue under consideration, we will also highlight another category of families, which is not as numerous as those with many children, but their role in supporting the institution of the family is extremely great. We are talking about foster families, the functioning of which significantly reduces the severity of the problem of social orphanhood ^[9-11]. According to some rough estimates, the number of foster families in Russia ranges from 90 to 100 thousand, and according to the number of children raised in each of them, such families "de facto" can be classified as large families, although "de jure" social protection measures implemented in relation to foster families differ significantly from those in relation to large families families raising their own blood children. Nevertheless, the high interest of the state in expanding the scale of family life of orphaned children makes foster families an important object of attention of the state's social policy implemented in relation to families with children.

The fact that the state is paying increased attention to social support for the family, motherhood and childhood, and expanding the scope and scope of social protection measures leads to the need to study and evaluate the effectiveness of the efforts undertaken not only from the standpoint of quantitative indicators that are in the field of view of federal and regional statistics – the amount of payments and the number of their recipients. It is equally important to monitor the processes and trends developing in the field of evaluating the effectiveness of government efforts within the framework of social policy by the beneficiaries themselves – families with children.

The purpose of the study, some of the results of which are presented in this paper, is to determine subjective assessments of the material security of families with children in connection with their receipt of social protection and support measures. The choice of the research object – large families and foster families – was determined by the following circumstances:

- the significance of these categories of families with children from the position of the goals of socio-demographic policy declared by the state, respectively, their hypothetical priority in terms of providing social protection measures;

- the possibility of conducting a comparative analysis in a situation of widespread actual large families in foster families.              

Research methods.

This article is based on the materials of an in-depth qualitative interview conducted by the author in 2023 with representatives of households of ten foster homes and ten large families living in large and small cities of the Irkutsk region. The distribution of families by place of residence was as follows: of large families, six live in large cities, four in small ones; of the foster families, seven live in large cities, and three foster families live in small ones.

The number of children in foster care in the surveyed foster families ranged from two to nine people. Among large families, the overwhelming majority were families with three children – nine out of ten – and only one family had four children, which corresponds to the actual state of affairs in Russia as a whole and in the Irkutsk region, in particular, where families with three children quantitatively prevail among large families ^[7] – the necessary minimum for family recognition large families in the vast majority of regions.

The sample of the study was formed in a mixed way: 50% of families, both foster and large families, were involved in interviews through secondary general education institutions where their children study, the rest of the informants joined the study using the "snowball" method – they were recommended by those who had previously participated in the interview.

The content of the interview on social protection and support for families with children included a number of areas:

- socio-demographic characteristics of the family;

- the content and structure of social protection and support measures, the recipients of which are the family – social benefits, benefits, social services;

- assessment of the degree of awareness of the interview participants about the possibilities of obtaining various social protection and support measures;   

- subjective assessment of the level of material security, social security of the family and the sufficiency of social support measures.

An overview of the results obtained.

1. Socio-demographic characteristics of the families of the interview participants.

Considering the composition and social status of the informants' family members, we note the following patterns, partially voiced in the previous section of the work. The number of children under the age of 18 in the surveyed large families ranges from three to four. It should be noted that in the Irkutsk region, a family has the status of having many children and, accordingly, the right to certain measures of social support, if it consists of three or more children under the age of 18.

In the surveyed foster families, the number of children in foster care varies from two to nine. At the same time, the actual number of foster children in most such families is much higher, but some of them have reached adulthood. In addition, there are native children in foster families, some of whom are already adults. The overall picture for foster families is as follows: the presence of both blood and foster children, while in most cases native children have already reached the age of majority, many have their own families, and mostly foster children live with their parents. Thus, all the foster families we interviewed have actual experience of having many children, which, relative to foster children, is not fixed by the appropriate legal status.

The issue of employment of parents seems to be important. In large families, almost all adults work, or the mother is on parental leave and plans to resume employment at the end of it. Only in one of the large families did the informant indicate her status as a "housewife". The situation is different in foster families. Fathers of families work, while mothers in only half of families have full or part-time employment, and for the rest, foster parenting is the only form of employment.

2. Characteristics of measures of social protection and support for families of informants.

A conditional watershed determining the content of social protection and support measures for families with children is the presence or absence of the legal status of a large family. None of the foster families who took part in our study has such a status for the reason that all foster children are fully supported by the state. The amount of social benefits provided for the maintenance of each foster child corresponds to the regional subsistence minimum ^{[12, p. 55]}. Foster parents receive labor remuneration for each child adopted into the family until they reach the age of 18, the amount of which currently amounts to about 6 thousand rubles.

In some cases, children in foster care receive additional payments, for example, a survivor's pension or disability if the foster child is disabled. Some of the children have the right to maternal (family) capital, to which, however, the foster family has nothing to do. In general, and this is noted by all foster parents, the amount of social benefits is insufficient to fully provide children with everything they need, therefore, in the foster families we interviewed, parents are ready to spend their own funds to meet the various needs of foster children and their development. As one of the informants noted, "it is impossible to raise children with such money."

Regarding large families, the situation looks different. Almost all the surveyed families have already disposed of maternity capital, both federal and regional, to which they were entitled with the birth of their third child. The vast majority of informants from large families noted that for their family it was a significant amount spent on improving housing conditions. Also, large families have the right to a free plot of land for housing construction, but none of the respondents were able to take advantage of this measure of social support due to the availability of a queue.

As for social benefits, today, with the introduction of the unified federal social benefit for a child, large families have been equalized with families with fewer children, since the main criterion for social benefits is the amount of per capita income for each family member. Considering that in most of the large families we interviewed, both parents work, according to our informants, "we do not fit any social benefits." And the regional monthly social allowance for large families is a little more than 200 rubles per child, and it was expected that the attitude towards such a payment on the part of the informants of the study is very negative.

In addition to social benefits, the respondents noted the existence of various social support measures at the regional level, which in some positions coincide for large and foster families. These include free or discounted vouchers for children to health camps, free meals in educational institutions, and the opportunity to visit cultural institutions for free once a month. In addition, support measures are provided for large families, such as free provision of medical prescription drugs for children under 6 years old, an allowance for the purchase of school and sports uniforms once every two years, and a number of others. It should be noted that for most measures of social support, informants from both large and foster families note their low importance for the family and the complexity of registration. The exception is the opportunity to provide children with free summer holidays and wellness – this measure is assessed very positively by the respondents, considering it significant for meeting the urgent needs of the family. Many also spoke positively about the possibility of children attending cultural events for free, but this measure is more interesting for families living in large cities, in addition, with the advent of the Pushkin Map, its relevance has decreased. It should be noted that the attitude towards this measure of social support was the only significant difference between families living in large and small cities, revealed during the interview. 

Regarding the provision of services in social service institutions, we note significant differences between large and foster families in terms of their involvement in this process. For large families, applying to social service institutions is mainly associated with the registration of social benefits and benefits for large families. Most of the representatives of large families interviewed by us noted that they do not need to contact social service institutions for two reasons: refusal to register social support measures due to their insignificance, or the opportunity to issue all necessary documents remotely, for example, through the Public Services portal. In general, the need to apply to the social service system for large families arises in a situation that is not related to the factor of having many children, for example, a child's disability.

Foster families, due to the specifics of their functions, have closer contacts with social service institutions that provide social support for such families. The informants named the following institutions: centers for helping children left without parental care; social rehabilitation centers for minors; centers for helping families and children. The majority of respondents from foster families note the forced nature of appeals, rather than the need for any services, in addition, they express dissatisfaction with the insufficient qualifications of the staff of institutions. There is an obvious dependence: with increasing experience of foster parenting, the need to communicate with specialists from social service institutions decreases.          

3. Awareness of the interview participants about the existing social protection and support measures.

The variety of social support measures provided to the categories of families with children studied by us implies the need to inform the population accordingly about their existence and the possibility of obtaining them. The information obtained during the interview allows us to determine the general level of awareness of large families and foster parents about the social benefits they rely on as low ^[13], however, our informants called different reasons for this situation:

- the negative experience of being refused to provide certain social protection and support measures to the family, which led to a decrease in interest in this topic;

- confidence that social protection structures have an interest in saving public funds – "they are poorly informed, probably so that they pay us less", "I don't know, maybe the state is saving, they are not sufficiently informed by the authorities";

- low level of willingness to search for information as a personality trait.

At the same time, more than half of the respondents in both large and foster families admit that the opportunities to receive information are expanding, and the portal of Public Services and social networks are among the most significant sources. At the same time, groups in social networks and other informal contacts are more often referred to as foster families as a source of information, which indicates a more significant level of interaction and cohesion of this category of families with children compared with large families ^{[14, 15]}.           

4. The informants' subjective assessment of the financial security of the family.

This block of questions is of particular importance from the point of view of the purpose of our research. During the interview, the informants were asked to assess the degree of sufficiency of social protection and support measures, the recipients of which are their family, in relation to the level of material security and social security, including in dynamics.

From the point of view of a subjective assessment of financial security, most informants classified their families as medium-income, but the materials of the interviews indicate that the grounds for such an assessment are very different for both individual families and different categories of families. This postulate is justified by the answers of informants to the question of whether they consider the social protection and support measures they receive to be sufficient.

In the responses of respondents from large families, there is a general dissatisfaction, first of all, with social benefits provided on a permanent basis – both their absence and insignificant amounts. In addition, families are not satisfied with the amount of benefits for having many children and organizational difficulties in obtaining them, which also creates a feeling of insufficient social support provided by the state. It should be noted that the respondents in two large families subjectively identified their own families as low-income. It is characteristic that maternity capital in the context of assessing the sufficiency of social support measures by large families is recognized as an important, but one-time payment that is not directly related to ensuring stable material well-being of the family. Thus, according to the general opinion of informants from large families, income from employment plays a major role in achieving an average level of material security, and the importance of social support is low.

Assessments of the sufficiency of social protection and support measures received by foster families differ significantly from those given by large families. First of all, among foster parents, not a single informant classified his family as low-income, on the contrary, in this category, two respondents identified the level of financial security of the family as high. The assessment of the sufficiency of social protection and support measures by informants from foster families was based on a "was–became" comparison, since all informants from families of this category have long-term experience of raising foster children in combination with having many children, both with foster and native children. Therefore, along with making critical comments about the possibility of providing foster children not only with the most necessary things, but also with those benefits that give a child the opportunity to develop, informants from foster families note that in recent years the amount of social benefits, the list and volume of benefits to which children from foster families are entitled have increased, which increases the level of material security.

The subjective assessments of the social security of the family, which the informants were asked to give in dynamics, fully correlate with the answers regarding the sufficiency of social protection and support measures received by families. The majority of respondents from large families noted that they feel a lack of social security, and in recent years the level of social security of their family has decreased. On the contrary, positive assessments prevail in foster families – most feel themselves and their families protected, the dynamics of this process in the last 5-7 years has been positive, the level of social protection of foster families according to informants tends to increase.

Conclusions.

The conducted research has revealed a number of problems and trends that reflect the effectiveness of the state's social protection activities in relation to certain categories of families with children – large families and foster families. At the same time, the differences in attitude towards the ongoing changes in the field of social protection and support for families with children between the categories of families studied by us are obvious.

Large families, the increase in the number of which the state considers as the most important task of the implemented socio-demographic policy and is largely interested in this, during the study noted the generally low effectiveness of social protection and support measures implemented in relation to them. The problems and trends in the functioning of large families of a social protection nature identified in the course of the study are as follows:

- the introduction of a single social benefit for families with children, the payment of which depends on the size of the per capita income of family members, implements the principle of targeting in social protection, but at the same time equalizes the rights to social benefits for large families with those in which the number of children is less;

- social payments and other social support measures provided to large families at the regional level are small, their contribution to the material security and social security of large families is not noticeable, while parents with many children believe that the complexity of processing these social support measures is very high;

- from the point of view of maintaining material security, large families put in the first place the possibility of receiving permanent social benefits based on the status of having many children, whereas one-time forms of support, for example, maternity capital, do not play, in their opinion, such a significant role in shaping the financial stability of the family.

Assessments of the effectiveness of implemented social protection and support measures in relation to foster families according to the results of the study look more positive. Informants note a significant increase in recent years in the amount of payments for the maintenance of foster children and the remuneration of foster parents, as well as an increase in the list and volume of additional social support measures, which, in their opinion, increased the level of material security of foster families. At the same time, foster parents express the need to take into account the needs of foster children not only of a minimal nature, but also related to their development, health maintenance, additional education, for which foster families currently have to find funds from intra-family resources.

The subjective assessments obtained in the course of the study indicate the need to form different approaches to solving problems of a social protection nature of the considered categories of families with children. For foster families, it is important to gradually expand measures of social support for foster children based on constant monitoring of the situation. In relation to large families, which represent the desired pattern of demographic behavior for society, it is necessary to radically change the social protection mechanisms based primarily not on an assessment of need, but on recognition of the status of having many children, which gives the right to receive additional social guarantees that ensure an adequate level of material security for this category of families with children.

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