Influence of Work Values on Almaty ( Kazakhstan ) Youth ’ s Work Style and Work Strategies

Influence of work values on Almaty (Kazakhstan) youth’s work style and work strategies is analyzed in this article. The article is based on sociological research results. The main reasons of modern youth’s aspiration towards higher education are analyzed in the article. Opinions regarding young people working or not working according to their obtained higher education are clarified. Basic obstacles and opportunities in finding employment by young people are shown. Basing on the sociological research results, the issue of what youth can easier find a job in our society full of changes is analyzed.


Introduce the Problem
Conduction of society value system stable sociological researches offer an opportunity to analyze social development dynamics, conditions, problems and perspectives, people's attitude, action strategies.The role of work values is different among these values.We can say that work values are the basis of employment, entrepreneurship, work effectiveness, work quality, human's life conditions and economics prosperity in the society.Currently it is important to pay attention on increase of work quality together with the problem of unemployment.It is possible to find a job for a person.But the problems on the way to performthework in high quality are more significant that the problems of unemployment.Because, work (labor) of poor quality is an obstacle for provision with work places, as well as its development deprives the state from large-scale tax paying capacity.In other words, even if we say that unemployment and social difficulties have found their solution, regulating (solving) of this problem in a low quality way will generate many other problems in the society.For example, hundred thousands of Kazakhstani surf the social network during the work hours.In a perfect worldpeople should be busy doing work during the work hours.If people surf the social network for hours during the work hours, what will be the operational capacity?We can see that even high powered, active in the society people nestle up these social networks and write comments to other internet users while rush period of busy work is passing by.Even if this kind of active people knowing the ropes of society's breath does not take their time effectively, what should young people do?!For instance, in the year of 2012 the President of Kazakhstan mentioned that the main reason of world crisis and generation of overall social parasitism in many publics is wrong consumer ideology and that all of the world countries realize this fact in his article named "Kazakhstan's Social Modernization: Twenty Steps towards a Universal Labor Society".The President formulated such problems like "What should be Kazakhstan society in the conditions of global uncertainty, in the condition of new epoch in order to stand against global storms?","What are our unperformed reserves and opportunities?What else should we do in order our social policy to be firm and viable?" and represented the idea of "A Universal Labor Society" which may be the alternative for consumer society in his speech (Nazarbayev, 2012).The article shows that economic and cultural wealth is formed with human labor, not with virtual financial institutes, that it is necessary to do true productive labor as the base of social policy.The objective of the idea noticed by the President is to form the labor-based public (Abdiraimova & Altynbekov, 2013).The leader of the state said that there are such factors like puerilism and parasitism in our society which are one of the obstructions towards the way of social development forth.The President of Kazakhstan noticed in his article: "The significant obstruction on our way towards social modernization is such wide-spread phenomenon like social puerilism.Negative view point contradicting work value which "was stuck" in the early transition period of "savage capitalism" in 1990s lies at the root of it.Such human formula of this prosperity achieving like "work less, earn more", "make money out of thin air" and many others were raised to absolute.Rude consumerism nourished with social puerilism is capable to be the obstruction for modernism" (Nazarbayev, 2012).

Explore Importance of the Problem
According to the data of the Agency of Statistics of RK, the quantity of the youth at the age between 14 and 29 is 4,656,500 in our country for the year of 2013 (Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Committee on Statistics, 2013).The quantity of male is 2,335,100 and the quantity of female is 2,321,400 according to gender composition.The proportion of urban youth is 2,574,100, rural youth-2,082,400.The proportion of the youth among city population in our republic is 27.7%, among rural population-27.3%.Currently, youth comprise 27.5% of republic population (Kazakhstan youth, 2013).There are 424,853 young people at the age between 16 and 29 in the city of Almaty where researches took place.In accordance with gender composition, the quantity of male is 195,174 (46%), the proportion of female is 229,679 (54%) (The Agency on Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan.The Department of Statistics of Almaty, 2012).According to the information of the Committee on Statistics for 2012-2013 academic year, 571,691 students were educated in 139 universities of the country and 520,371 students-in 610 colleges (Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Committee on Statistics, 2013).The mentioned statistics data show that youth's enthusiasm for acquisition of higher education is rather high.However, there are young people who did not acquire education together with those who acquired it.These two factors (being educated and not being educated) increase the possibility of obstacle existence in finding employment in Kazakhstan.According to the information of "Zhastar" Research Center, in the second quarter of 2013, the level of 15-28 aged young people unemployment was 6.6% (Kazakhstan youth, 2013).This statistical indicator may seem as a good indicator on one side.However, as criteria for unemployment measurement in Kazakhstan is different comparing to many other countries, the volume of unemployment is higher than the mentioned number.For instance, students attending classes, young people fulfilling their military duties in the ranks of armed forces, women delivered a baby do not enter the category of unemployed population.Along with that, unemployed category does not contain the youth who were not registered officially as unemployed in the labor offices;the youth who could not find a job immediately after graduating from the university belong to the category of self-employed ones.In deed and not in name, this kind of youth cannot be classified as unemployed.According to the information of the Ministry of Education and Science, 161,000 children finished the school in the year of 2012.43,000 of them entered colleges and 93,000 entered the universities.25,000 school leavers did not enter any educational establishments (Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2012).56,017applicants of 84,496 (students graduated college) who expressed intention to enter the higher education institution for 2014-2015 academic year could not collect appropriate balls according to complex examination requirements.This comprises 66.29% of the total number.And in the year of 2014, 87,593 school leavers participated in the common national testing for finishing the school, 20,232 (23.11%) of them could not collect the necessary ball quantity giving them a chance to finish the school (Educational state grant holders in RK will be determined in the first ten-day period of August, 2014).In other words, it seems that there are applicants who did not enter any school in 2012, 2014, there is a foundation to conclude that a certain part of the young people who could not enroll in a higher education establishments or colleges joined the number of unemployed youth.For example, DosymSatpayev provides the following facts regarding the education level of Kazakhstan unemployed population: 117,900 people (24.9%) have a higher education, 174,800 people (36.9%) have a general secondary education, 124,800 people (26.4%) have a specialized secondary education (Satpayev, 2013).Consequently, we can see from the statistics that in many circumstances unemployment is rather high among the youth who did not acquire the higher or specialized education.These factors do not give an opportunity to describe the full picture of the youth unemployment in Kazakhstan labor market.The existence of the mentioned problems confirmed the sociological research results of "Zhastar" Research Center.For example, according to conducted social researches, among the problems raising difficulties in getting an employment for the young people there are: no employment history (22%), low salary (17%), employers' corruption, bribe-taking (13%), discrepancy between acquired education and market requirements (11%), young specialists' low competitive ability in the labor market (10%), no work places in the districts they live (10%).Respondents to the survey also mark they wish there was discrimination concerning gender and nationality (correspondingly, 3% and 4%) (Kazakhstan youth, 2013).
Unstable, full of changes youth unemployment against the background of world crisis is very important problem nowadays.We are of the opinion that together with youth unemployment youth's work values, work attitude, professional degree, fulfillment of work of high quality and high level is more crucial than the unemployment problem.Because it is possible to find an employment for a person, but it is difficult to ensure this person to execute his work in a quality manner and beneficially for an employer.Performance of work in a non-professional manner is not only the obstruction for enterprise development and prosperity, but also may lead to phase down the opened work places.In this regard, Kazakhstan analyst DosymSatpayev's following opinion concerning the youth and human capital assets is important: "Kazakhstan needs professional teachers, qualified doctors, experienced engineers, active research scientists and so on, not new ministries.In other words, human capital assets forming future generation education, national health, innovational and technological splashes.Up to date, education level is lowering, especially in the regions, healthcare is weakening, engineers are growing old and unemployment among the youth is growing up" (Satpayev, 2014).

Method
The article is based on the results of sociological research conducted by the author in the seventh district of Almaty during the period from January 27 till April 10 of 2014.The objective of the article is to determine the subject of young people's work value directions, to find their advantages and disadvantages, to analyze the opportunities and dangers through quantitative research methods.To explore the factors composing young people's work values.Target of the research is the youth at the age from 16 to 29.Effective law of state youth policy indicates the youth as citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan at the age from 14 to 29 (Law "Of state youth policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan", 2015).This age interval is confirmed in the most countries of the world.However, we considered 16-29 aged youth in our research.Its main reason is 1 paragraph of 30 article of the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (The Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2007) stating that a person over 16 years old is entitled to sign on an employment agreement.In other words, allowance for work is granted for people over 16 years old exclusive some circumstances.The second reason is the fact that 16 years old is the period when school leavers choose their professions and college students set about to study the profession that they chose.The third reason, economically active age starts from 16 years old.
Selection capacity is 500 respondents.Quantitative method of the research is used in order to achieve research objective.The method of quantitative research data collection: personal standard interview.Selection represents the young people of the seventh district of Almaty city.Investigation data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0 computer program.
Desk research or traditional documentary research.The analysis of additional information sources was conducted within the framework of the abovementioned method.Used documents can be divided into the following groups:  Statistical collection and other information of statistical character.The main source of this information is Republic of Kazakhstan, Ministry of National Economy, publications on the official web-site of the Statistics Committee, Ministry of National Economics, the Republic of Kazakhstan.Such selection of related articles like "demography", "youth", "labor" were used (

Results
It is very important young people to turn towards education for any developing country.Currently, countrywide aspiration to acquire an education is rather high.However, such issue like "what is youth's attitude towards a higher education" is very interesting and important for investigators.In this regard, respondents were asked the question "What of the following viewpoints do you agree with?".The results of answers are provided in the those who gave answer "Higher education is the document necessary for life","Higher education is the obligatory norm of modern life" comprises 28.3% of 100%.These young people attend classes because they think higher education will be needed in future and consider as the life norm.The peculiarity of the youth from this group is that they cannot be expected to study in a quality manner and to strive eagerly.Because, they enrolled in the school under the influence of the demand, not by the reason of their own enthusiasm.Those who chose "Higher education is the guarantee of employment", "Higher education is the indicator of life success", "Higher education is the family tradition" variants comprised 19.7%.There is a base to say that the youth from this group are more progressive that the youth from the second group.Because these youth consider the education as living base, guarantee of employment.And there are the young people who identify the education as family tradition.Even these young people may be divided into two.At the first hand, they strive to acquire higher education because all of the family members acquired the higher education.For the second hand, these young people consider that it is better to continue their parents' path as their parents are the specialists of a certain field.Continuation of parents' path makes conditions youth's exploration of their profession, making conscious choice.Youth's gaining of knowledge of high or poor quality depends on the profession they chose, goal and motivation.In this regard, we can give consideration to the research named "Higher education and occupational work" (N=2538) conducted by the company "HeadHunter" research center as the parallel comparison to our research.29% answered"I need the Diploma of higher education (the type of diploma is not important) for ceremonial functions", 26% gave "the most necessary (like personal ID) document" answer, 19% said that it was the guarantee of employment, 11% answered that it was the criteria of intellectual properties and the rest 9% said that it is "the indicator of life success" (Research center of "HeadHunter" company.Higher education and occupational work, 2012).The mentioned data shows that graduating higher education establishments and obtaining a diploma is just formal characteristics for most people.However, it is clear that if attending the higher education establishment is just needed in order to obtain a diploma, then there will not be any successful indicators.These two investigations represent that the young people of Almaty and other regions of our republic have different attitude towards obtaining a higher education.Knowledge is important for Almaty youth in some degree (27.9%) and this indicator for provinces is 11%.In our opinion, besides teaching school pupils to work, it is important to teach them to make conscious choices, what is beneficial and what is not.Teaching young people to critical thinking concerning any problem gives a chance to make the right choice by them.
"Higher education and occupational work" research of Research center of the "HeadHuner" company determined that significant part of nowadays youth worked in their specialization.2,538 respondents participated in the survey were people with the higher education.55% of respondents answered "yes" to "Do you work in your specialization?"question, 38% said that they did not work in their specialization and the rest 7% answered that they did not work anywhere (Research center of "HeadHuner" company.Higher education and occupational work, 2012).The survey conducted in the city of Almaty shows similar results of republican survey.The results of the research conducted in the city of Almaty are provided in the table below.More than the half of respondents answered "yes" to "Do you work in your specialization/want to work in your specialization?"Question in the conducted survey and one in three of respondents gave "no" answer.In other words, the proportion of the youth desiring to work in the specialization are more than those who do not want among young people.Though, the fact that 35%, in other words one in three of young people do not want to work in their specialization is very significant problem.Because, transition from one specialization into the other one takes much time, as well as the need of qualification change appears and the education obtained for 4 years goes for nothing.State grants, plentitude of parents' resources and teachers' efforts will be wasted.The fact thatthe specialists educated according to the state special offer will change their occupation will lead to the lack of specialists in a certain field.Although, the event that the young people do not work in their specialization will give foundation for big problems on different levels.
We noticed that there are the young people who do not want to work in their specialization.The results of the investigation on the issue why the youth do not work in their specialization or do not want to work in their specialization are provided in the table below.There can be mentioned 3 basic reasons of the answer results given by the respondents for "What is the reason why you do not work/do not want to work in your specialization?"survey: the first reason is "Low salary on my profession"; the second reason is "It is difficult to find a job on my profession"; the third reason is "I do not like my profession"."National", "gender" and "age peculiarities" do not take on enormous importance among the main reasons of people's absence of desire to work in their specializations in Kazakhstan.This condition says that people's failure to work on their profession results from the mistakes in the strategies of personal and person's choice of profession, not from social or collective reasons.The main reason of the fact that the young people do not work on their specialization does not only depend on the current conditions, but also depends on the individualities their making choice of the profession.For example, we consider that one of the factors influencing on the human attitude towards labor is that a human cannot acquire the education turned into his/her desire and dream and that a human do not work in his/her specialization.Let us pay attention on the priorities in choosing some professions among higher education establishment students in the year of 2012.In order to be awarded with the state grants each pupil leaving the school in Kazakhstan participates in the competition according to the balls they obtained in the "Common national testing".Each pupil has a chance to participate in the competition on four professions.But he/she ranges these four professions at his/her own wish.As a result, he/she passes on the first, second, third or fourth profession according to his/her balls.This experience represents that the youth choose the first profession at their own wish and the rest chances are made in order to win the grant.In other words, they do not like this profession, but there is a chance to win the grant on them.For instance, 30 grants were allocated on the "5B051100-Marketing" profession in the year of 2012 for faculties with education in Kazakh in Kazakhstan.9 pupils of them were those who chose it as the first profession among the rest four.16 grants were allocated for "5B050100-Social science"profession for the faculty with education in Russian in the mentioned year.Only 2 applicants of 16 marked Social science in their choice as the first one.
The rest 14 school leavers won the grant according to the second, third or fourth opportunity.22 grants were allocated for the Russian faculties of "5B090500-Social works" profession.The quantity of those who chose the specialization of Social works is six.The rest 16 applicants won the grant according to their second, third or fourth opportunity (Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.National Testing Center.Summary list of the competition on educational grants awarding).We named only 2-3 statistics, and tendencies of enrolling in the specializations of technical, natural sciences and humanitarian fields are rather high.In other words, the quantity of students who desire, eager to learn is significantly less than the quantity of those who do not wish and like their specializations.We can see this tendency in the list of professions chosen by school leavers applied for education annually.There is a tendency of acquiring education they do not like among the young people because of the grants.They do not learn curiously, with interest.Such question like if any person enrolls in the profession he likes, the balance of specialists will be broken may be arisen.It is true that all of the people will not be able to enroll in the specialization they wish.It is worldwide experience.However, in our conditions pupils soak up the idea that they will be lawyers, economists, international relations managers or any other specialization with oversupply of prepared skilled workers in their minds while they are in school.
Then after finishing the school they do not want to enroll in the specializations with lack of skilled workers.And they cannot enroll in the mentioned professions.That is why, if authorized bodies and universities of each knowledge domain in the state conducted a monitoring predicting what professions the state will need in the years of 2018,2019,2020,2021,2022, there would be great help for parents, pupils and school teachers and the state would know in advance necessary for the society professions and would teach them according to the special order (Altynbekov, 2014).
Analyzing the obstructions which modern young people face in their life experience of finding an employment, we specify different reasons.Each investigator offers his own variant of answer.In order to concretize this information we posed "What obstructions did you face in your experience of finding an employment?" question to Almaty youth.The result of research is provided in the table below.If we pay attention on the information provided in the table above, it will be determined that currently the young people's biggest obstacle in finding an employment is "lack of experience".Even if this factor is important for modern college and student youth life, it may be faced by the young people older than 25 years old in their primary work experience."Discrepancy of my profession to the desired job position" factor is also important obstruction of the secondary importance for the young people.We have already written that there are differences in youth's desires and chosen professions in our public.The youth pursue a degree which has grants and requires enough money.After graduation the fact that they do not have a diploma, knowledge according to their desired profession makes difficulties in finding an employment."No relatives and acquaintances" is the third factor that is an obstruction for finding an employment.It should be mentioned thatwe observed that such factors like "no acquaintances", "financial possibilities", "rich parents" are always the top factors in all of our researches.In our opinion, the biggest disadvantage of the modern young people is that they put a great deal of trust in the mentioned factors.The youth named "Lack of knowledge and qualifications" problem in the survey.Let us explain this factor with the following example.For example, up to date there are several questions posed primarily while interviewing for a hiring job position.They are such questions like "do you have work experience?", "what can you offer for our company?","what can you do?"In this case employer's requirements are correct.It is effectively for each employer to hire a well-experienced worker.The main mistake is made by colleges and higher education establishments by giving insufficient working knowledge while preparing future skilled workers.The event that students' work experience internship is conducted on paper only gives origin for different problems.The survey determined that there are not so much problems concerning national peculiarities and there are problems in youth's personal competitive ability.We can say that the reason of youth's failure to work in their specialization is low salary.Currently it is a well-known fact that there are "status marker contradictions" in many work places of our country.For instance, a person is well-educated, creative and he wants to work in the civil service or in the field of education.But he may earn twice or threefold more money working in the place of the private sector which does not need person's knowledge.We can say that this tendency is the status marker contradiction.However, this situation may be transformed into the big advantageous process in future.In other words, transition of public sector, agriculture, health care (public), legal field and teacher (state educational establishments and institutions) into the private sector will generate big personnel problems in the mentioned sectors.As a result, people will teach their children to choose a desired and profitable profession in future and great rivalries among employers will be formed in public.
It is very important to find an employment, change an employment for each young person.In this case youth's action strategy is different.In order to get to know the methods used by the young people for hiring a job, we posed "What methods would you use in order to get a job?" question in our research.The research results are provided in the table below.The most propitious ways for youth's finding an employment are "Collect information on vacancies and be interviewed" and "I believe in myself only"variants of the answer.It shows that this ways of job hunting are directed to use young people's own conscious and vacancies of independent companies, as well as trust to find a job honestly, with their own efforts.Choosing "Register in the employment agency or employment center" method took the last place in the research result.Consequently, the youth's trust to find a job using this method is poor.There is a belief among the young people that employment agencies work just on paper.Usage of "Through acquaintances" (16.7%), "Use high-powered people" (7.3%) methods among the young people is on the third and fourth places.Even if this indicator does not show very critical situation, the people from this group are inclined to offend against a law through paying a bribe and usage of acquaintance.However, we consider that these indicators shall be lower and actions to make them lower shall be implemented.
After the above-mentioned question "Who can find a job easier in Kazakhstan?" question arises logically.Up to date, someone from Kazakhstani public says that those who "have good contacts" and the others say that those who have "financial possibilities"have more opportunities to find a job.Generally, in order to determine the basis of these and other factors, the answers of questions posed to respondents are provided in the table below.The answers given to "Who can find a job easier in Kazakhstan?"question by the respondents participated to the survey were comprised by top three "well-skilled people", "people with foreign education" and "people who have good contacts" variants.Those who chose these answers are 69.2%.The opinion that people with foreign education can find a job easier prevails too.The basis of this opinion is that there are a lot of young people acquired European education and graduates of "Bolashak" program made great progress.Besides the modern youth who believe that well-skilled people and people with foreign education can find an employment easier, we can see that the proportion of the youth who rely on the good contacts is great too.These youth's answers show that there is such a tendency in the public.We can see that currently when a lot of youth are asked "do you work?", they give an that they are"waiting for an answer".Our sociological research proves these our words.Nevertheless, there are many young people who understand that it is possible to succeed, reach the desired job with the help of personal work, knowledge, persistence and this indicator is significantly better than 10 years ago.Respondents (11.5%) named that it is easier to find a job for those who "know English".This situation shows that situation concerning English knowledge needs to be improved.Nowadays a lot of companies have the obligatory requirement for employees to know English.If young specialists graduated from the university know English, this feature will give them additional opportunity.This tendency may be observed in the research results too.The proportion of respondents who believe that it is easier to find an employment for those who "have financial possibilities" is 1/10 of all the respondents.

Conclusion
Analyzing the results of sociological research provided in the article, attitude towards knowledge, work strategy and work style may be divided and considered with the following tendencies:  The major part of the young people understand the conception of the higher education as "knowledge necessary for overall development", "key for making career", "document necessary for life";  More than the half of the youth work or want to work in their specialization;  The main reasons of the fact that major part of the young people do not work in their specializations among the youth are "low salary on the specialization", "difficult to find a job on specialization" and "they do not like their profession";  The basic category of the obstacles in the experience of finding an employment contains such factors like "lack of experience", "discrepancy of my profession to the desired job position" and "no acquaintances";  The prevailing part of the young people consider "to collect information on vacancies and be interviewed", "to believe in myself only", "to use acquaintances" and "to use high-powered people" during the job hunting;  The majority of the young people in Kazakhstan believe that "well-skilled people", "people with foreign education", "people with good contacts" can find a job easier.
Ministry of National Economics of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Committee on Statistics, 2015);  Statistical data on the official web-site of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan(Ministry of education and science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2015);  Kazakhstani sociological organizations and research results of separate investigators.Investigations of "Zhastar" research center were used in the article preparation ("Zhastar" research center, 2015);  Research results of Research center of "HeadHunter" company were considered (Research center of "HeadHunter" company, 2015);  The investigation and scientific works database of the Institute of Education Sciences-The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) were evaluated (Institute of Education Sciences-The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC).

table . Table 1 .
Youth opinion concerning a higher education As it is shown in the table above, youth's attitude towards a higher education is on different levels.All the answers may be divided into several main groups.The first group: those who gave an answer "Higher education is education necessary for overall development", "Higher education is the key of making career" comprised 47.7% of 100%.Approximately half of the young people associate the mentioned values with career and personal development.The second group:

Table 2 .
Occupational work

Table 3 .
The reasons of youth's not working on their specialization

Table 4 .
Main obstructions in finding an employment

Table 5 .
Methods of a job

Table 6 .
The youth who can find a job easily