The article studies the problems of the modern demographic situation in Russia and justifies new approaches to regulating demographic processes. Particular attention is paid to parental labor as activities related to the birth, care, education and development of children in the family, its aspects are distinguished (division of labor between parents, gender inequality in this sphere and its determinants, time spent on household work related to children , development of parental skills and parent training). The author substantiates the importance of the set of competencies necessary for the successful implementation of labor in the sphere of population reproduction and identifies groups of such competencies – special, social, informational and communicative. Based on the materials of the sociological research of students' ideas about the future of labor in labor (2016, N = 400), recommendations for optimizing the preparation of young people for parental labor were proposed.