Changes of marital behavior and family patterns in post-socialist countries: Delayed, incomplete or specific second demographic transition?
Authors: Petrovic Mina 
Published: January 2012

The paper starts by questioning the theory of second demographic transition
(SDT) and its universal relevance in the field of marriage behavior and
family organization in low fertility context, arguing for more differentiated
approaches. With an aim to illustrate the contextual specifics of
post-socialist countries in general and of Serbia in particular, the author
claims that analyzed changes have not just been delayed or incomplete in
comparison to more developed European countries, but shaped by specific
modernization processes, which led to rationally developed strategies in
overcoming structural risks, although, without ideational changes typical to
the theory of SDT. Slow changes in marital behavior and family organization
in Serbia are illustrated in recent sociological (empirical) research
findings. The perceived changes are linked to specific structural risks (war,
slow transformation and enduring economic hardships, weak state and low trust
in institutions, etc) and value characteristics (persistence of materialism
and traditionalism, but with increasing ambivalence). The connection between
structural and ideational changes is considered through social stratification
variable by relying on Coale's model on necessary preconditions for
behavioral changes as well as on social deprivation concept. Having in mind
upper social strata (more educated and better off), the value changes precede
the behavioral that are adapted to economic uncertainty, which still force
more traditional marital and family patterns. Therefore, there is a rank of
different options, from extended family (for a short period at the beginning
of marriage or after divorce) to separated leaving (of married partners) in
parental households (due to refusing the extended family option thus creating
quite specific "living apart together" form), combined with dominant strategy
of prolonging the marriage. Hence, for upper social strata, marriage is still
a universal but negotiable institution since more alternative options
(although attractive and in accordance to changing values) are deemed
irrational (have no obvious benefit). As regards the lower social strata
(less educated and worse off), marriage is more in accordance with their
higher inclination to traditional values, but general value liberalization
legitimizes possible failures (divorces, extra marital births), which, even
if not desired or economically rational, happen due to lower capacity to
command life. For that reason, cohabitations and extra marital births are
more common among actors at the lower end of the stratification ladder. The
paper concludes that adaptive strategies related to traditional patterns of
family organization dominate in Serbia, which might be illustrated by the
fact that every third of one parent families lives in extended families. Even
with significant structural changes (and economic improvements) in Serbia in
the near future it is realistic to expect familism as an influential context,
which suggests the spreading of cohabitation primarily as a pre- marital
option (but more desired than forced).