This paper demonstrates how Russian men and women from different generations undertake their first demographic and socioeconomic events. The study uses a panel of the Russian part of the “Generations and Gender Survey” (2004, 2007, 2011; 4,943 respondents) and Russian survey “Person, Family, Society” (2013; 4,344 respondents). Using sequence analysis tools, we analysed the biographies of people born in 1930-1995.

Our analysis reveals the changes between sexes and generations. Socioeconomic events are achieved faster than demographic events. Men demonstrate behaviours oriented more toward economic success, but they do not spend less time on education than woman. Women of older generations behave differently from men in the socioeconomic sphere of life: they tend to separate from their parents first, rather than start working or complete their education. Modern women rely more on themselves economically. Women start to gain demographic events earlier and more intensively than men, but at the age of 35 they more often appear to be single mothers.

Young people, compared to older generations, much more actively enter cohabitations and even have children in them, but they usually delay childbearing to later ages. They have more diverse trajectories in both demographic and socioeconomic spheres of life. We can see deinstitutionalisation in the trajectories of young people.