Unsustainable youth employment in the digital economy: Cognitive dissonance and social mechanisms of adaptation

The article examines the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance among young people employed in the digital economy, amid the growth of precarious employment in Russia. According to the Federal Tax Service and Rosstat, from 2020 to 2024, the number of self-employed people exceeded 12 million people, while young people actively choose platform employment, despite the awareness of its risks. The author analyzes this paradox through the prism of theories of cognitive dissonance (L. Festinger), risk society (U. Beck) and the precariat (G. Standing), revealing the contradiction between the rhetoric of "freedom" and real instability.

The empirical part of the study is based on a survey of 450 respondents (18-35 years old) living in different cities of Russia, employed on platforms (delivery, freelancing, taxi), and an analysis of digital communities. The results showed that 65-80% of workers experience dissonance (expressed in the contradiction between the declared "freedom" and actual dependence, the absence of a long-term work plan, the "demonization" of traditional labor, the illusion of autonomy, ignoring financial risks), rationalizing it with different psychological attitudes. The manifestation of dissonance is manifested at three levels: emotional, behavioral and social. These signs confirm that dissonance is not just an individual psychological conflict, but a systemic mechanism of adaptation to precarity.

Conclusions

1. State policy (tax breaks without social guarantees) and the lack of transparency of algorithms exacerbate dissonance.
2. Young people aged 18-25 and residents of small towns are more likely to justify precarity.
3. Social consequences include increased inequality, postponement of family creation and "deferred poverty" due to the lack of pension savings.

The author proposes measures to reduce dissonance: regulation of algorithms, inclusion of the self-employed in the social security system, and the creation of legal associations to protect rights.