Family crisis

Demography: a latent threat

Diagnosis

Th e family is the primary unit of a human society, having a fundamental economic, so-cial, and demographic importance. Its main functions are to assure the human continu-ity, form and develop the intellectual, moral, spiritual and physical skills of the young generation, convey the adults’ life experi-ence and maintain the accumulated wealth.

In the Republic of Moldova, the economic and demographic transition has caused es-sential transformation to the family institu-tion. If there are high gaps between the local death and birth rates and the European ones, then there is a convergence in case of fami-lies - malefi c indeed - towards the “European model” of families, a trend which poses a de-mographic disadvantage for the country.

Th us, the process of family shrinking has accelerated. If in 30 years (1959-1989), the average number of persons in a family went down from 3,8 to 3,4 persons, in the following 18 years (1990-2007), the num-ber of persons decreased, practically, by the same, reaching 3,1 persons. In 1970 the number of two-people families accounted for 26%, whereas in 2004 this share reached 31%. Th e share of families with one or two children is also increasing. Th us, if in 1989 such families accounted for over 83% of all families, then in 2004 they accounted for 86.5%. Th is is accounted for by a persistent tendency to postpone child birth, as a reac-tion to the unfavourable social economic en-vironment. Th e public perceptions confi rm this assertion: 33% of citizens believe that at present the conditions that might stimulate young people to give birth to children are “a little more unfavourable” if compared with one year ago, and 14% claim they are “much more unfavourable”⁶⁸.

Th e second tendency, which is becom-ing poignant, is the growbecom-ing number of children born outside marriage (Figure 11).

Obviously, the number of unmarried moth-ers is not increasing highly, as in the current socio-economic context the decision to give birth to a child in a one-parent family would be very diffi cult to explain. Th e dynamics in

the number of children of unwed parents re-veal the essential changes in the lifestyle dur-ing the pre-marriage period, the extramari-tal relationships becoming more popular⁶⁹. At the 2004 census, 57 thousand men and 60 thousand women reported being “unoffi cial-ly married”. Th e fact that children are born not by unmarried mothers, but in unoffi cial marriages doesn’t mean that the family re-lationships are strong, but the opposite. Th e erosion of the family relationships is also ob-served in the public perceptions. Over 39%

of citizens declare that “the family relation-ships seem to have worsened during the past decade”, and 22% - that “the family relation-ships have severely deteriorated”⁷⁰.

Another important development is the increase of the marriage age. If in 1990, 35% of women were getting married under the age of 20 years, then in 2006 this share dropped down to 25%. Conversely, the share of marriages at the age of 25-29 years increased signifi cantly (Figure 12). Th e long term consequence of this change is the

Demography: a latent threat

er probability of having the second or third child in the family. Even the birth of the fi rst child is later than the marriage, being fre-quently delayed by up to 3-5 years. Th is has a three-sided eff ect: 1) higher probability of an early divorce in a childless family; 2) more risks during the child delivery, caused by the mother’s older age; and 3) lower probability of having the second child, as the mother’s age at the birth of the fi rst child determines the number of children in the family. Over 70% of the families, where the mother had

21-27 years when giving birth to the fi rst child, have two and more children, and the older the mother at the fi rst birth, the lower the probability of having the second child.

If the aforementioned elements could be interpreted as manifestations of the social modernization, the real family cri-sis is the ease of divorces. From this point of view, Moldova has joined long ago the Western patterns. During 1990-2004 the gross divorce rate increased almost twice.

One fourth of divorces take place in the families that had been married for less than 5 years. It is worrisome the accelerated di-vorce rate in the rural areas, where the tra-ditional conservative attitudes towards the family don’t prevail any more. However, it is worth mentioning that during the past two years this trend has slowed down, the gen-eral divorce rate dropping from 59.3 cases per 100 marriages in 2004 to 46.5 cases in 2006 (Figure 13).

Th e divorces of families with minor chil-dren account for one third of all divorces.

As a result of family break-down, thousands of minor children remain without one of their parents, though the absolute number of such children is decreasing (Figure 14).

At present, about 15% of children live only with their mother, though their father is still alive, and 5% of children live only with their father, though their mother is still alive (the emigrants’ children are not included here).

Th e domestic violence is another mani-festation of the family crisis in the Republic of Moldova. As reported by UNICEF, more than half of Moldovan women older than 15 years have been subject to domestic violence at least once⁷¹. Th e children are also fre-quently subject to physical and psychologi-cal violence as a form of education. Again, it is not clear if the economic and social transi-tion has increased the domestic violence or if this phenomenon mainly originates from the Moldovan culture. Anyway, it is a fact that the violence undermines the emotional and moral principles underlying the family.

At the same time, the emigration erodes the social principles and values underlying the family life. Th e preliminary studies in this area confi rm that 50% of the families, where one member has emigrated, divorce aft er maximum 5 years since the

emigra-Source: Statistical yearbooks of the Republic of Moldova, 1995, 2006

Figure 12 Trends in the marriage rate by age (women) during 1979–2005

Source: Statistical yearbooks of the Republic of Moldova, 1995, 2006

Figure 13 Evolution of the general divorce rate

71 http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/media_39036.html.

Demography: a latent threat tion (see SPECIAL TOPIC: WOMEN AND

EMIGRATION). Th e emigration impacts negatively the education and moral-psy-chological state of children. According to the Demographic and Health Study in the Republic of Moldova, carried out in 2005, 76% of the mothers of children under the age of 15, who don’t live in the same house-hold with their children, are abroad, and only 24% of them live in another household in Moldova. Th e emigration also led to an increase in the number of institutionalized children.

Risks

Th e demographic indicators and pub-lic opinion polls reveal an acute erosion of the family values in the Moldovan society.

Th is process cannot be justifi ed only by the diffi culties of the economic transition, ex-perienced by the Republic of Moldova. In the 1990’s, the most diffi cult period of the transition, the divorce growth rate was not as high as aft er 2000. Th is phenomenon is mainly explained by factors related to the conjecture (intensifi cation of emigration) and transition (continuous demographic modernization).

Th e highest risk, posed by the divorces, is that the young people lose their trust in the family life and don’t see the need to form their own family. Th e lower sustainability of families induces a diminution of the birth rate. Th e studies confi rm that only one third of the second marriages have children.

Th ough decreasing, the number of children aff ected by their parents’ divorce is still high. Th us, the emigration has disastrous eff ects on the sustainability of families. Th e lengthy absence of one spouse, especially of the wife, increases the risk of real sepa-ration, if not formal divorce (see SPECIAL TOPIC: WOMEN AND EMIGRATION).

Th e lengthy absence of one of the parents leaves emotional and moral traces over the children, infl uencing negatively their social-ization. Moreover, the researches and obser-vations confi rm that half of the children, ed-ucated in one-parent families, cannot form sustainable families of their own, divorcing themselves subsequently.

Th e domestic violence is another sub-stantial risk that undermines the family

cohesion, as the main element of the soci-ety. Th e violence between parents or from parents has a negative impact on the child’s emotional development. Moreover, the stud-ies reveal that there is a high likelihood that the children born in violent families will replicate these behavioural models in their own families.

Governmental policies

Th e family protection and strengthen-ing policies are at the initial development stage in the Republic of Moldova. Th e young families are practically not supported by the State. In 2003, the Republic of Mol-dova Government approved a family and child protection strategy, but it is not imple-mented appropriately. Th e central and local governments, NGOs and other important entities practically don’t react to the increas-ing rate of divorces, and the family and child protection strategy doesn’t stipulate a clear position in this respect.

Th e Law on Domestic Violence Preven-tion and Combating was passed in 2007. Th is law provides for legal protection and creation of support services and shelters for victims of domestic violence. At the same time, the rehabilitation centres for victims of domestic violence are supposed to be fi nanced by the local governments that neither understand univocally the real implications of this prob-lems, nor have enough fi nancial resources to set up the needed infrastructure.

Source: Statistical yearbooks of the Republic of Moldova, 1995, 2006

Figure 14 Number of minor children aff ected by the divorce of their parents

Demography: a latent threat

Recommendations

Th e willingness of young people to have chil-dren is an absolutely individual decision, ma-inly determined by the socio-economic conditi-ons. However, this doesn’t exclude the need to promote the traditional family values and the model of a family, consisting of husband, wife and at least two children. At the same time, it is necessary to get rid of the social stereotype that numerous families are “faulty” families.

It is necessary to develop the birth recording methodology. Th is is needed to be able to delimit the number of children, born by really unwed mothers from the number of children, born in

“unoffi cial marriages”.

Th e divorce is a strictly personal decision, but it is also an extreme way of settling the family problems, where the public authorities cannot get directly involved and provide support. At the same time, more refi ned intervention for-ms are allowed and needed, in order to prevent, where possible, the family break-down, especi-ally if the family concerned has minor children.

Th e local governments, in tandem with speciali-zed NGOs, should use the instruments of infor-mation, counselling and educations to approach the families at risk. Th e cooperation with the main stakeholders (NGOs, school, church, and mass-media) can provide the needed channels of communication and information.

It is necessary to secure a higher involvement of the local governments and police in the preven-tion of domestic violence. Many cases of violen-ce are not even hidden, being widely known and tolerated at the community level. Tolerance of the domestic violence against children and wi-ves should be eradicated from the (non-)culture of our nation.

It is necessary to establish a social support in-frastructure for the children, abandoned by the parents that have left for abroad. Such support centres should be established in every commu-nity, either by the local governments or local NGOs. Th ese support centres should be entitled to conclude child care contracts with the emi-grating parents, thus covering a part of the ex-penditures of these institutions.

Demography: a latent threat

Diagnosis

Th e emigration is determining the de-mographic processes in the Republic of Moldova. Th e development of this phenom-enon depends on the “attraction/rejection”

factors, which are mainly of economic na-ture. Th e key determinant of emigration is still the income gap between the Republic of Moldova and the countries, receiving Moldovan emigrants. Despite the fact that the real salary in Moldovan economy is growing, the diff erence between the level of labour remuneration is still too wide to reverse the emigrants’ fl ow. Furthermore, establishment of social safety nets allows to lower the emigration risks and costs and fa-cilitates new cases of emigration. Over one third of interviewed emigrants declared that the decision to emigrate had been mostly determined by the fact that they had some acquaintances in the destination countries.

Diff erent sources estimate the number of Moldovan emigrants between 300 and 600 thousand people. Even the estimations made on the basis of thorough sociological surveys should be interpreted with certain precaution. Th e emigration is mainly an ille-gal phenomenon. In addition, as they either receive or send money back home, many re-spondents tend to hide the real information about emigration. At the same time, given that the emigration phenomenon has al-ready reached a great extent, it is very likely that many families have emigrated for good, and simply don’t get into the sample of in-terviewees.

Regardless of the real number of emi-grants, it seems that the emigration process hasn’t yet depleted its potential. If they had the opportunity, about 27% of Moldovan citizens would emigrate “for sure” within three months, and 15% - would “rather” em-igrate⁷². Emigration will also persist in the nearest future because, unlike the fi rst waves of emigrants, driven by the desire to earn a minimum revenue, at present more and more young people emigrate, looking for the same economic and social opportunities as the ones enjoyed by European citizens. Th e

existing surveys, that confi rm these trends, suggest that in 2004-2006 the number of emigrants increased by at least 20%⁷³. At the same time, because of the extreme depen-dence of the economy on the weather con-ditions (see the impact of the 2007 drought, analyzed in REAL ECONOMY section), there is a possibility for the emigration to increase among the people who have never intended to emigrate before.

At present, the emigration of the Mol-dovan population is quite diversifi ed in terms of its form, type and social segments included. If prior to early 1990’s of the XX century the emigration was mainly oriented towards the East, then at present the Western direction tends to become more important.

Th e people that emigrate to the East tend to be concentrated in several metropolises in Russia and Ukraine, which poses some political risks (see SPECIAL TOPIC: RE-CONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP WITH RUSSIA). In the West, the emigrants are spread in several Mediterranean coun-tries. Th ough Moldovans form diasporas in all countries of destination, the absorption of Moldovan people into the local popula-tion is becoming more dominating.

Th rough the remittances, the emigra-tion served as an important survival instru-ments, directly saving the poor population that remained without any sources of liveli-hood (see LIVING STANDARDS). At the same time, the emigration is infl uencing the demographic situation. Th e most negative consequence is the defi nitive disintegration of many families through formal or informal divorce (when one of the spouses has emi-grated for a long period or time or for good).

At the same time, due to emigration there is an increase in the number of children, who live separated from one or both parents. Th e family, as a fundamental social institution, was deeply shaken by the emigration (this situation is described in FAMILY CRISIS).