Spread of western marital behavior in Georgia

Tamar Shinjiashvili, Tbilisi State University
Nino Chikhladze, Tbilisi State University
Ketevan Asatashvili, Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg

From the beginning of the 1990s the family transformation started in Georgia, that caused a high spread of the European type of marriage. The Number of marriages has decreased considerably, the mean age of first marriage is increasing constantly, marriage “gets old”. These are one of the signs of the family transformation. Another significant sign is the growth of cohabitation and extra marital births. The majority of the youth prefer informal relations, because they take less responsibility towards each other by this way. The main priority of them is not the creation of the family, but the development of the economic basis. Family changes have a negative influence on the fertility rate. The number of births has reduced twice. This set of changes resembles strongly the ones, which are known as the second demographic transition. According to the above mentioned parameters Georgia is close to Western and Central European countries. Rapid family changes and spread of Western marital behavior were preconditioned by diverse reasons: economic crisis, unemployment, instability on the labor market, emancipation, female employment, emigration processes and so on. The paper presents the analysis of the family institution changes, whereas focusing on negative consequences of family transformation.The research is mainly based on different quantitative and qualitative resources, including statistical yearbooks and surveys, the First National Population Census of Georgia 2002, and the information data provided by Georgian and foreign experts.