Are Lion’s Whelps Equally Lions?!

In Georgia, tradition has it that a son stays in the family and is responsible for taking care of his parents in their old age. Consequently, tradition also gives parents’ property to their sons. This limits women’s access to economic resources. New data from Caucasus Barometer shows that regardless of whether people think that a son or daughter or both equally should take care of their parents in their old age, many believe the son should still get the inheritance.

The data shows that people are either for equally distributing the house between sons and daughters or in favor of giving it only to the son. Daughters are rarely seen as the main heirs of the property. About half (52%) of the population believe that the apartment should be given to both children equally. At the same time, almost half of the population (47%) think that son is the main heir. Only 1% think daughters should inherit their parents’ apartment.

In contrast, Georgians overwhelmingly believe in sharing the responsibilities when it comes to caring for their parents. Three-quarters of Georgians believe that children of both genders should equally take care of parents, and twenty percent think that a son should take care of their parents more. Only 6% believe that the primary caregiver should be a daughter.

Most of those respondents (77%) who think a son should take care of his parents believe that property should be given to him. One fifth (21%) are for equal distribution, and only 1% believe that the property should be given to a daughter. Most people (60%) who think that both should equally care for their parents think that property should be distributed equally. Still, 37% think that the son should inherit and 1% that the daughter should. What is more, (55%) of those who believe that daughters should take care of their parents believe that property should be given to the son, while 40% thinks that it should be equally distributed. These numbers, however, should be treated with caution given the small sample of individuals that reported they think daughters should take care of parents in their old age.




Note: Answer options don’t know and refuse to answer are dropped from the analysis. Overall, less than 2% responded with these answer options to either question. The question “Imagine that there are a son and a daughter in a household; and the household only owns one apartment. In your opinion, who should inherit the apartment?” was shortened to “In your opinion, who should inherit the apartment?”

Further analysis shows that women are less likely to say that sons should inherit property than men. Tbilisi residents are less likely to mention that the inheritance should be given to sons than people in rural areas. Those in Tbilisi are also more likely to say that the inheritance should be given to all children equally. Those who have secondary or lower education are more likely to say that a son should inherit property than those with higher education. Moreover, they are less likely to say that all children should inherit property equally.





Note: On the above chart, base categories for each variable are as follows: male, 18-35 age group, should take care equally, rural, ethnic Georgian, and tertiary education. Answer options don’t know, refuse to answer, and other are not included in the analysis. 

The data shows that people are either for equally allocating inheritances between their children or giving it only to a son. Most people think that all children should take care of their parents equally despite their gender.  Taken together, this shows that gender equality in inheritance still has a ways to go in Georgia.

Note: The above analysis is based on a multinomial logistic regression analysis, where the dependent variable is responses to the question “Who should inherit the apartment: a girl or a boy?” The independent variables are gender, age group, ethnicity, settlement type, education, and conservative index. The data used in the blog is available here. Replication code of the above data analysis is available here.