Trust, responsibility, and freedom: Focus-group research on contemporary patterns of union formation in Russia

Abstract

AbstractBACKGROUNDWhile some studies directly address the issue of changes in union formation in Russia and Eastern Europe, few have focused on attitudes and norms regarding marriage and cohabitation. In Russia cohabitation has risen sharply in the last decades, but recently its level has stabilized and even decreased slightly.OBJECTIVEWe intend to highlight gender and educational differences in perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of cohabitation vs. marriage.METHODSWe conducted 8 focus groups in Moscow in January 2012 (4 with men, 4 with women, half with higher educated participants and half with lower educated participants).RESULTSParticipants claimed that trust between men and women underlies preferences for marriage or cohabitation. Participants' religious beliefs form a 'three stages of union' theory: cohabitation in the beginning, civil marriage later when trust has developed, and finally a church wedding when trust is established. In union formation the participants' ideals are the values of responsibility, freedom, fidelity, and trust. The level of trust is highest for proponents of marriage and ideational cohabitors. People without a strong preference for a certain type of union have the lowest level of interpersonal trust.CONCLUSIONSIn a society that currently can be considered anomic, interpersonal trust was found to be the most important factor underlying expressed ideals in choice of union type. It takes different forms for adherents of marriage (trust with closed eyes) and adherents of cohabitation (trust with open eyes).1. IntroductionWhile some studies directly address the issue of changes in union formation in Eastern Europe, including Russia (Perelli-Harris and Gerber 2011; Hoem et al. 2009; PerelliHarris and Isupova 2012), few have focused specifically on attitudes and norms regarding marriage and cohabitation. Cohabitation has increased significantly in Russia during the last few decades .According to the census, the share of couples cohabiting increased from 9.8% in 2002 to 13.2% in 2010 (All-Russian Census 2002, 2010). Another study in 2004 found that around 25.7% of the total of partnered respondents had never married their current partners (N=7645) (GGS 2004). Nonmarital childbearing also became more common, with 30% of births occurring outside of marriage in 2005, although by 2011 this had gradually decreased to 24.6% (Zakharov 2011). This figure is not as high as in other countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (e.g., 57.4% of births to cohabitors in 2012 in Bulgaria, and 58.4% in Estonia, Demoscope Weekly, 2013), but is still remarkable considering that in previous decades childbearing within marriage was nearly universal in Russia. Indeed, about half of the increase in nonmarital fertility has been to cohabiting couples (Zakharov 2011), suggesting that cohabitation has become a new part of the family formation process in Russia.In Russia there is very little understanding of how people talk about cohabitation and marriage: the meanings attached to these types of behavior are unclear. This makes explanation of recent fluctuations in nonmarital fertility very difficult. In our view, greater insight is needed into the nature of cohabitation and how people discuss it. Thus, in this study we use focus group research to explore discourses on cohabitation and marriage. Focus group methodology allows us to reveal social norms and attitudes and discourses regarding marriage and cohabitation, and to see how people interact when discussing cohabitation. Our main research questions concerned the meaning of cohabitation for people choosing (or not choosing) this union arrangement; differences between marriage, cohabitation, and simply dating; advantages and disadvantages of cohabitation and marriage; reasons for the increase and decrease in the number of people living together without marrying; and culturally specific patterns behind cohabitation in Russia. …