Rural territories of the Russia's south: dynamics of economic structures

The article deals with the main problems of rural life in such agrarian Russian subjects, as the Republic of Kalmykia, the Astrakhan and Volgograd Regions, the Stavropol Territory. The significance of the study lies in the fact that for the first time an analysis of economic patterns in the gender context was carried out on the basе of a sociological study conducted in the summer-autumn 2018 in these four regions. A mass questionnaire survey allowed us to clarify the factors that influence rural diversity, the specificity of rural space, when the usual forms of management disappear and new outlines of the social structure of the village appear. At present, the situation of private farms has certainly changed compared to early 1990s. The author of the article determines the marketability of family farms, entrepreneurial activity of smallholders, and the presence/lack of motivation of the rural population to the maintenance of peasant farms. Diversity, types of employment in various fields, and income levels of the rural population determine the main changes in rural life. The results of the study reveal the most important problems of rural residents, such as lack of jobs, low financial opportunities for farm development and low availability of state support for farmers.