How often from everywhere, including from the high stands, one can hear: “Family values are being destroyed. People no longer want to create stable relationships, love, give birth to children. " The people were completely unbelted. Especially in big cities. All around individualism and atomization. But is it really so? We figure it out by analyzing the latest research in the field of family and marriage.
The family we are going to talk about is not a "Russian nesting doll" of the "daughter-mother-grandmother" type, not "sister and brother with children and household members" and not other forms of cohabitation of relatives, involuntary, as a rule (due to constrained material circumstances, as often happens). We are talking about the union of a man and a woman who are relatively young, free, independent, and nothing but goodwill can force them to unite under one roof. What are the grounds for this "goodwill" today? And are there any such grounds at all? After all, more and more people are heard from everywhere: “The institution of the family is dying,” “There are more divorces than marriages,” “Men don’t want to marry,” and so on.
In sociological science, there are two points of view on the trends in the modern family: the paradigm of the crisis and the paradigm of modernization. Roughly speaking, either pan or disappeared. If there is a crisis, then the family is falling into the abyss, the human race is in danger of extinction. If it is modernization, then we still have the hope of continuing to reproduce and populating our home planet more and more densely, as commanded by our ancestors and all authoritative religions. Only on some already new, so far rather vague conditions. Both positions have many supporters, and not only among scientists.
When talking about a family crisis, they usually cite divorce statistics. And she's pretty apocalyptic. If we combine the latest information from Rosstat and the European Statistical Agency, it turns out that we are in first place in Europe in terms of the number of divorces per thousand people per year. Specifically: according to Rosstat data for 2019, for 900 thousand marriages we have about 600 thousand divorces. Moreover, the bad habit of leaving did not come to our country yesterday. In 1965, the procedure for divorce was simplified (in particular, the beginning of divorce proceedings was no longer reported in the newspapers - before that it was mandatory), in 1969 a new Family Code was adopted, which allowed spouses who had no minor children to divorce without trial. And the people slowly reached out to the registry offices for divorce stamps. In the 1970s and 1980s, the future CIS countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova - cheerfully overtook old Europe in the number of divorces. In the RSFSR, families disintegrated twice more actively than in West Germany, and almost four times more than in France. It was not possible to defeat only the United States, but in 2002 they were beaten too.
Why divorce
People call the reasons for divorce today the same as seven years ago. In a survey by VTsIOM, published in the summer of 2019, on the attitude of Russians to marriages and divorces - 21 percent of respondents expressed the opinion that most often marriages break up "because of betrayal, jealousy", the same number of people believe that families are ruined by "misunderstanding and selfishness" … And 46 percent are convinced that the cells of society are crushed by "poverty, lack of work and the ability to feed a family." And this is already interesting: in 2013, only 21 percent of respondents named poverty as the cause of family collapse.
HSE demographers Elena Churilova and Sergei Zakharov studied the process of inception of seditious thoughts about divorce in people. Based on data from three waves of the survey “Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society” (for 2004, 2007 and 2011), the scientists analyzed how often married Russians thought about parting with a partner and in the end really disagreed. Despite the complexity and colossal scale of the work (a survey of 3000 people from different marriage cohorts: those who got married in 1965-1979, in the 1980s, 1990s, early 2000s), scientists, in fact, confirmed that that everyone has known for a long time. It turned out that women were twice as likely as men to think about the quality of relationships. Also, it was they who were more likely to part with their partner - and fulfilled their plans. People of the older generations indulged in dreams of divorce almost half as often as young people.
“Women have always tended to place higher demands on both the choice of a partner and the quality of relationships,” says family psychologist Irina Petrova. - Evolutionarily, it is the weaker sex that is sharpened to choose the best father for its offspring, and today this has been added to the freedom that contraception, economic equality and new cultural attitudes have given: if the father was not good enough, you can relatively bloodlessly kick him out of family life. The union of a man and a woman, sealed with a stamp in the passport, no matter how we worn with it, is acquiring more and more formal meaning. The age of marriage is constantly increasing. Increasingly, women are striving to "get married" as soon as possible in order to have time to give birth to a child and get rid of social pressure, and then divorce and calmly, freely look for a partner, as they say, for life. By the way, public opinion has already reacted to this tendency: divorced ladies are being labeled as “divorced with a trailer” (a divorced woman with a child - “VM”). Today it is one of the most powerful insults, while before the most offensive were the "century" and "old maid".
Windy youth?
However, if you do not hang in a woeful pose over the "adjustable" numbers, like an old woman over a broken trough, but dig a little deeper, we will find something interesting. For example, divorce isn't just our nationwide fun. In terms of the number of marriages, Russia is also among the leaders among European countries. More precisely, in third place after Lithuania and Romania. We just live so energetically, we are hot people.
Looking at the history of divorce statistics, we can easily see that the current 600 thousand per year, which are presented by both the media and officials as "horror-horror", has been going on for a long time. 581 thousand couples divorced in 1980, an ominous 666 thousand in 1995 and 854 thousand in 2002. Since then, the number of divorces did not fall below 600 thousand until 2018. But getting married in the last 10 years has really become less common: in 2011, marriages were concluded by 400 thousand more than in 2019. Although in fairness, we note that in the late 90s people got married even less willingly. But they got out somehow. Even a small baby boom was staged in the 2000s. Moreover, sociologists insist that marital activity is still more connected with the number of young people than with the strengthening or weakening of traditional braces. Now a small generation, born in the 90s, is getting married, so in the coming years people will not marry too violently. And when the baby-boomers-two-thousanders grow up, "marriage" will again creep up. What if there are fewer divorces? It may very well be.
Pragmatic youth
Sociologists have always loved to study young people. And she has never presented as many surprises to scientists as in recent years. Many studies find that young people in Russia today are judicious beyond their years. No old man's slogans like “live fast - die young”. Moderation and accuracy in everything.
Thus, in the article “Students' attitudes in the marriage and family sphere and relations between the sexes” (2018), the authors, Doctor of Sociology, an employee of the Institute of Sociology of the FCTIS RAS Tatyana Gurko and student Maria Mamikonyan, cite research data of students aged 20–23 years. The research was carried out in focus groups (when the participants are not questioned, but are assembled into a company of 8–12 people and are invited to discuss a particular problem). Discussion of the question "Why do people marry officially?" found that young people today are more serious about the economic basis of the family: many admitted that it is not at all necessary to run to the registry office from a floundering bay out of great love.
It is much wiser to live together, test feelings. You don't need a stamp for this. An important reason for marriage is the couple's joint property. At the same time, in itself, "the institution of marriage still retains its significance," the researchers say. With regard to matrimonial roles, Russian students showed a balanced liberal approach: they recognized that a woman has the right to work, and not sit on maternity leave, and the husband can stay with the children if his wife has a good stable job, but he does not have a very good one. In conclusion, the authors of the study admit that "the double standards, according to which only men should initiate acquaintances, relationships, pay bills, are gradually fading away in Russia." Boys "are oriented towards different models of division of family roles, girls - mainly towards an egalitarian model." On my own behalf, I will add: we did not even notice how wonderful young people have grown up in our country, reasonable and psychologically flexible. It is hard not to admit that these two qualities give a good prognosis for a happy married life.
Civil marriage: why not
There are many studies that cohabitation without registration is a very fragile structure. Sociologists and psychologists agree: women in such marriages suffer because they do not feel confident in their partner and are in no hurry to have offspring. And the men look to the left and are not free falcons at all. However, despite the warnings, more and more Russians (and not only Russians) are united under one roof without notifying the registry office about it. At the same time, civil marriage is increasingly viewed not as “a life in sin, forgive me, Lord!”, But as a natural stage, a kind of “purgatory” between the candy-bouquet period and the official union, with a stamp and a wedding ring. Western sociologists have been talking about this for a long time, and more recently ours. For example, in the report “Is cohabitation an alternative to marriage in Russia”, HSE sociologists Alena Artamonova and Ekaterina Mitrofanova, relying on the analysis of the survey “Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society”, concluded that 76 percent of “free cohabitations »Culminate in matrimony. True, it is necessary to make a reservation: our sensible youth likes to live without a stamp in principle (see above). Increasingly, scientists talk about "serial monogamy": he lived with one person for ten years, then another ten years with another. Life is long now.
Psychologist Yulia Lisichkina, an employee of the Department of General Psychology at the Institute of Experimental Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, agrees that people will officially sign less and less often over time: “Still, the man is still responsible for the transition of marriage to the official plane. As modern and egalitarian as he is, he still strives to be stronger, smarter than his woman. At a time when the wife did not work and depended on her husband for everything, it was easy. In the modern world, to be a leader, you need to work hard. And the man follows the path of least resistance: he refuses to marry. So he retains control over the situation, as if making the woman dependent on her decision."
How many wonderful discoveries we have
For me personally, the reason to raise this topic was one original dating site, which I once wrote about and which I have been observing since it opened - since 2012. As the editorial says, it was created for people who dream of having children. It's that simple: "Finding a partner with the desire to have a child."
Starting to study the content, I grinned: there must be herds of cunning people grazing here who dream of cheating on their legitimate wife under the guise of charity. And my expectations were partially justified: when I registered there as a lonely lady dreaming of offspring, I was attacked by several married men with offers to “provide my biomaterial for free”. I made fun of them in the article, but did not delete the profile. And soon, among the applicants, free single men who wanted to find a wife began to prevail, that is, those same "normal men", about whom they so often say that "they are not left." As one of them admitted, “the freeloaders in“Tinder”are bored. That is, on an ordinary dating site, there is a great danger of running into a frivolous young lady, but here the noble rule of the game - having children - creates a reliable filter from psychological garbage. This is also an interesting trend of the times and, possibly, a promising form of family: people unite not for love, not for the preservation and augmentation of property, but in order to raise offspring. This is curious: by tradition, it is customary for us to condemn marriage for the sake of children. This general point of view was succinctly expressed in one of the lectures by sexologist, doctor of medical sciences Lev Shcheglov, who said that in a "child-centered family", descendants grow up under the hood of overprotectiveness and grow up as unhappy neurotics. Not to mention, adults who have narrowed the happiness of marriage to parenthood are also unhappy. Everything seems logical. But there is one "but". Life gives us all new food for thought. The creator of the dating site I described, Pavel N. (he refused to give his last name) is a programmer by profession. The idea to help people in such an unusual way was prompted by his own everyday situation: “It seems that everything was enough, but what really was not there was his biological children. The wife could not get pregnant. But she already had an adult child, and I did not. And I decided to throw all my programming efforts into this project. " Over time, Pavel himself took advantage of the possibilities of his project: he acted as a donor of material for artificial insemination. And now he is a happy father of three children - from several happy mothers. He calls himself "regularly helping dad at a distance."
The question of longing for paternity was removed, relations with his wife were preserved. “I was convinced myself that, in principle, the created system is functioning. And there are a lot of men like me on the site”. And what, so it is possible ?! It turns out, yes. Websites inviting people to unite to create children in the United States and Germany opened even earlier than in Russia.
REPLICA
Svetlana Boyarinova, family psychologist:
- So far, I can talk more about the crisis of the family than about the revival. Most people live according to the laws of a consumer society, which is constantly experiencing a shortage of something and is not aware of its resources. People-consumers, like little children, want to take, but are not very eager to give and create. And the family is the ability to create, an adult position. Perhaps we will soon grow up and create something new on the ruins of a traditional family. But it is too early to talk about it.
STATISTICS
According to a VTsIOM poll conducted in March this year, Russians are really not very eager to officially change their civil status. Every tenth person prefers an informal marriage. There are especially many “informals” among young people. In the age categories 18-24 and 25-34 years of people living in civil unions, 16 percent, respectively. The most conservative are Russians over 60 years old. Only 5 percent of citizens of this age group prefer "free" cohabitation with a partner. Only 52 percent of our compatriots are officially married and are married today.
Meanwhile, Rosstat reports that during the pandemic, the marriage activity of the population has generally decreased. According to the ministry, in the first half of 2020, the number of marriages decreased by 25 percent and the number of divorces by 25.7 percent. In addition, the birth rate decreased by 5.4 percent. In January-June, 680,974 babies were born in the country, and 946,539 people died. Thus, the natural population decline was 265,565 people.