Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 12 – The jump in the number of divorces in the North Caucasus between 2022 and 2023 was the direct result of a change in Russian government policies that provided more subsidies for families whose total income was below the minimum income levels that Moscow has set, Igor Yefremov says.
In 2022, the numbers of marriages and divorces in the region were roughly equal, but in just one year, the number of divorces rose to the point that it exceeded the number of marriages, according to the demographer who cited the Russian government’s statistical arm, Rosstat (takiedela.ru/notes/razvody-na-severnom-kavkaze/).
In order to drive family incomes down and thus meet the requirements for government subsidies, many husbands and wives in the North Caucasus, the poorest region in the Russian Federation, filed for divorce. As a result, women with children could get government funding that they otherwise would not have qualified for, Yefremov says.
Another demographer, Aleksey Raksha, points out that it is quite easy for North Caucasians to do so because they don’t consider civil marriages, which are the basis for government calculations of family income, all that important. Instead, they see religious ones as key – and those can continue even when civil marriages are formally dissolved.
Thus, the Putin regime which continues to tout itself as family friendly is behind a policy that is not only leading to more civil divorces but is also increasing the importance of religious ones in the North Caucasus, yet another example of the unintended consequences of policies developed by Moscow officials who know little or nothing about the regions and republics.
To be sure, the Kremlin has come up with one strategy in response: It has ordered Rosstat to stop releasing data on this and other social developments, something that will make it difficult but probably not impossible to determine whether the trend of more divorces in the North Caucasus is continuing or not.
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