Finding work in Armenia and Georgia

With official unemployment rates in 2014 running at 17.6% and 12.4% in Armenia and Georgia respectively, a World Bank analysis in both countries suggests that the labor markets of these countries suffer from a skills shortage. The World Bank’s STEP Skills Measurement Program gathers information on the supply and distribution of people’s skills, and the demand for these skills in low-income countries’ labor markets, interviewing a representative sample of adults aged 15 to 64 living in urban areas. This blog post looks at the World Bank’s STEP data for Armenia and Georgia, which CRRC collected in 2013, to see how people are finding work, their confidence that they have the skills needed to find work, and how they feel their education prepares them for work.

Interestingly, in both countries, a plurality of employed people reported relying on their social networks (friends/relatives/other) to find a job (37% in Armenia and 45% in Georgia). Also reflecting the informal nature of the job market in both countries, the next most common method was to contact the employer directly: 26% in Armenia and 18% in Georgia.

Note: The chart presents only answers of those who reported they had worked in the previous 7 days and shows the percentage of those reporting having used a given method.

Both employed and unemployed were asked whether they thought they possessed various qualities or knowledge that would help them when looking for work. People appear to be very confident in respect to certain skills – for example, 92% of Armenians and 81% of Georgians thought they would perform well in a job interview. However, the share of those who felt they had the necessary work experience was much lower – 60% Armenians and 58% Georgians thought so. In both countries, few believed they had the means to start their own business: 7% in Armenia and 13% in Georgia.

Note: The chart shows only the percentage of those reporting having a given skill or resource.

A very important issue the World Bank reported about for both Armenia and Georgia was the high level of unemployment in these countries despite a (formally) highly educated workforce. Indeed, in both countries, around half of those who have a bachelor’s degree had not worked. The World Bank report for Georgia concludes that the highly educated population does “not have the skills needed in the labor market … many Georgian employers complain that hiring workers with the required skills is difficult.” Similarly, for Armenia, the WB notes that “despite the high availability of labor and these high educational levels, Armenia’s employers are struggling to find the right workers, which seems to point to a problem of skills in the labor force.”

Note: The chart only shows the answers of those that answered ‘No’ to the question “During the past 7 days, did you work for at least an hour for wage or salary in cash or in kind OR work on your own account for profit or family gain OR work in a family business or on a farm?”

Only around half of those who had worked in the week preceding the survey (42% in Armenia and 37% in Georgia) think their formal studies were “very useful” for their job. The rest, however, are not so sure about this.

Note: The chart only shows the answers of those that answered ‘Yes’ to the question “During the past 7 days, did you work for at least an hour for wage or salary in cash or in kind OR work on your own account for profit or family gain OR work in a family business or on a farm?”

Further analysis of the World Bank data could help to uncover whether this is because people’s skills are being underutilized – for example, by having to take jobs that are at a lower skill level than they are qualified for – or if they believe their education does not provide job-relevant skills. Potentially, there could have been other reasons as well.

The full STEP survey datasets for Armenia and Georgia are available from the World Bank website.

The population of Georgia on the ideal number of children per family

Many factors determine the size of families, including economic, cultural and social influences. Not surprisingly, people’s considerations about its “ideal” size do not often match the reality. In this blog post, we shall have a look at whether Georgians’ views about the ideal number of children per family meet the reality, and how these views differ according to people’s sex, age and settlement type, using data from CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey in 2013.

In response to the question, “What do you think is the ideal number of children per family in Georgia?” there is no statistically significant difference in responses by sex: 47% of women and 45% of men consider three children to be ideal. 

Although the same is true for representatives of all age groups, younger people are more likely to think that smaller family sizes are better. Among the 18-35 age group, 21% say two children is the ideal number, compared to 11% for 36-55 year olds and just 6% in the 56+ age group. On the other hand, twice as many over-55s prefer four children than do 18-35 year olds (34% compared to 16%), and just 4% of both 18-35 year olds and 36-55 year olds think the ideal family has five children, whereas 10% of over-55s do so, with a further 3% thinking six or more children would be best.

Note: Responses “Don’t know” and “Refuse to answer” were excluded from the analysis throughout this blog post. 

The Caucasus Barometer data also shows that attitudes to family size change based on where people live, with a slight preference for bigger families in rural settlements, while in the capital and other urban settlements more than half of people think three children is ideal. 

There is also a strong preference for two or three children among women aged between 18 and 35 – the main childbearing age group, – of whom 77% think so. 

How do actual family sizes match up to this? Figures from Geostat, Georgia’s national statistics office, show that although the number of first children being born has been decreasing in Georgia since 2009, there is an overall rising number of births, that should be attributed to an increase in the numbers of second and third children per family. For instance, in 2006, the share of families’ first children’s births was 61%, second children’s – 28% and third children’s – 9%. By 2014, when the total number of births was much higher, the share of first children’s births had fallen to just 43% of the total, while second and third children’s births comprised 38% and 14%, respectively – the highest levels in any year covered by this data.

This suggests that family size – and, specifically, the actual number of children per families – is edging towards the levels that Georgians say they consider ideal. 

Do you think we’ll soon have most of the Georgian families having three children? Share your thoughts with us here or on our Facebook page. 

More data from the Caucasus Barometer surveys is available on our Online Data Analysis site. 

How do Georgians spend their leisure time?

How much free time people have – and how they choose to spend it – is influenced by multiple factors, with some of the most important being work, family and a person’s stage of life (Roberts et al, 2009; Parker, 1975). CRRC-Georgia’s 2011 Media survey, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allows us to delve into how Georgians spend their leisure time. To find this out, an open question was asked: “Please tell me how you usually spend your free time in your day-to-day life?” The number of answers respondents could provide was not limited. This blog post looks at how answers differ by age, sex, income and settlement type.

The most popular activities named were watching TV (83%) and spending time with friends or family (49%). A small proportion of the population (5%) said they had no free time at all.

For some, but not all, activities, the survey showed clear differences in the responses of representatives of different age groups. For example, 58% of 18-30 year olds mentioned that they spend their free time with their families, compared to 33% of the over-60 group. The situation is reversed when it comes to gardening, however: just 7% of the youngest age group said they gardened in their spare time, whereas 26% of the oldest age groups (46-60 and over-60s) take care of their yard or garden. Stark differences are also seen in the use of the internet and listening to music. Not much difference is apparent, though, when it comes to reading books, hanging out, sleeping and shopping.

Differences can also be seen in how men and women report spending their spare time. The graph below shows leisure time activities with the biggest differences between men and women. Men are more likely than women to say they spend their free time hanging out (28% compared to 5%), sleeping (16% compared to 10%) or exercising (7% compared to 1%), while women are more likely to report reading books (23% versus 14%) and shopping (11% vs 6%).

The data also enables us to see whether there are any differences in the preferred way of spending free time by household income. As might be expected, the share of those who spend time with friends/family, use the internet and read books is higher when the household income is relatively high, while gardening, for example, is more common in cases of households with a lower income. A previous CRRC blog showed that employed people are more likely than the unemployed to participate in activities which involve socializing, meeting new people and helping others. Those, on the other hand, who said they had no household income are more likely to hang out than any other group.

Activities also differ widely between those living in and outside the capital, Tbilisi. When it comes to going to the cinema or theatre, this could be due to the lack of such an opportunity outside the capital, as theatres and cinemas can be less accessible. Internet access is also more common in the capital, helping explain the difference in use of the internet (34% in Tbilisi vs 14% in the rest of the country). People living outside the capital were less likely to read books than those living in Tbilisi, but more likely to watch TV and read newspapers.

This blog post has looked at the Georgian population’s involvement in particular leisure activities, and how this involvement varies by age, sex, income and settlement type. Further analysis could consider whether these demographic characteristics affect activities that people undertake in their free time that are not commonly categorized as leisure – such as helping neighbors, cleaning public space, or volunteering at church.

For more data, have a look at CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

How's your internet?

A guest blog post by Dustin Gilbreath and Hans Gutbrod

If you are reading this, maybe your internet isn’t so bad. Maybe it took some time to load this page and while waiting for the page to load, you thought, “It’s bad.” The quality of internet service is a frequent topic of conversation in Tbilisi, where access to the Internet is the highest in Georgia, and satisfaction with the service varies widely. This has motivated a quick online poll – undertaken by Dr. Hans Gutbrod, in March 2015 – on assessments of internet service in Tbilisi. While not a proper random survey, such a poll (conducted with Google Forms) can still be informative, though it will primarily provide the views of people that have time and feel strongly enough to fill out the survey. The questionnaire was distributed on the Megobrebs listserv, newsgroup and via twitter, and was administered in English only. A total of 52 people based in Tbilisi filled out the survey.

What then are the findings?

Thirty four respondents reported experiencing problems with their home internet access, with 16 complaining about regular short interruptions in service; 9 about crawling internet, 10 about outages lasting longer than 5 minutes, and 13 having trouble connecting with multiple devices.

Overall, respondents’ satisfaction with internet service, measured by their willingness to recommend the service to a neighbor, was medium, with a mean of 2.92 points on a five-point scale, with code ‘5’ meaning not willing and code ‘1’ meaning willing to recommend. With all the caveats mentioned above, the numbers seem to suggest that Caucasus Online customers appear to be more satisfied than Silknet subscribers. The latter were slightly over half a point (0.63) less willing to recommend their internet service provider (ISP) to a neighbor willing to pay the same service fee, indicating a lower level of satisfaction. Caucasus Online subscribers also rated the customer service they had received in instances where they encountered a problem 0.74 point higher on average compared with Silknet subscribers.

Note: Respondents’ answers were recorded using five-point scales. For the first question on the chart above, code ‘5’ corresponded to very bad service and code ‘1’ – to very good service. For the second question, code ‘5’ corresponded to the answer ’not willing to recommend the [respective] service to a neighbor’ and code ‘1’ – to the answer ‘willing to recommend the service to the neighbor’.

Interestingly, satisfaction with customer service varies by language used by the respondent to communicate with the company. The 9 respondents who only spoke with their ISP in English rate the service almost a point higher than those who communicated with the ISP in Georgian (19 respondents). The 18 respondents reporting using a combination of languages (Georgian, Russian or English) fall in between the two. Hence, Georgian speakers appear to be the least satisfied with their ISP’s customer service.

ISPs should be wary of the problems. Analysis of the data suggests that those who are less satisfied with their internet service, measured either by satisfaction with customer service or by willingness to recommend the ISP to their neighbors, are also more likely to be considering switching their service provider (Correlation coefficients of r=.47 and r=0.42, respectively). This also indicates that those who experience poor customer service are slightly more likely to leave their service provider compared with those who would not recommend their internet service provider to a neighbor.

The rise of mobile internet provided by cell phone companies in the Caucasus adds yet another angle to the story and is likely to further drive competition in the internet market, which in theory should spur on service improvement. While mobile internet is not a fully substitutable good for land-line services for everyone, it will soon be for many. On the 2013 Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey, the activity Georgians most frequently report doing online was social network usage, something which can easily be done on even a very modest model of a smart phone. While CB 2013 indicated that only 12% of Georgian households had internet access on their mobile phone, the share has undoubtedly increased since, and will continue to increase, in line with the global trend in smart phone ownership in recent years and taking into consideration relatively low prices of mobile internet in Georgia.

It is important to remember the above presented provisional impressions from a quick poll that does not claim to be representative of internet users in Tbilisi. It would take a full-scale survey (at the price of a new car) to get representative and comprehensive findings. For now, the key take away message appears to be that customers who experience poor service – both in terms of quality of internet provision and customer service – are more likely to think about switching their provider. While service providers would be wise to improve their customer service, competition stemming from the rise of mobile internet will also likely lead to increasing quality of service as providers compete for subscribers. Improving customer service in Georgian language should be a priority for companies like Silknet and Caucasus Online, as Georgian speaking customers generally rate their service worse than those who receive service in English.

What has your experience with the internet in Tbilisi (and beyond, throughout the Caucasus) been? Join in the conversation on the CRRC-Georgia Facebook page.

The opinions expressed in this blog post reflect those of the authors alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of the organizations which Dustin and Hans work for.

Perceptions of court proceeding transparency

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the sixth blog post in the series. Click here to see the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts in the series.]

By Mari Mekhrishvili

Transparent courts are essential to ensuring the accountability of the judiciary and to sustaining society’s confidence in the judicial system. The current version of the Organic Law of Georgia on Common Courts, after important amendments made in 2013, is designed to ensure the transparency of the courts. The courts are now obliged to record court sessions and provide records to all interested parties upon request. In addition, the Public Broadcaster is authorized to record and broadcast court sessions except in cases when sessions are closed either in part or in whole, and to provide records to other media outlets upon request. The law also guarantees that the prosecution, defense, and any person present at the trial can record court sessions. 

To find out to what extent the legislative changes about photo, video and audio recording during the court sessions works in practice, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association surveyed 26 Georgian media outlets. According to the results of this survey, court proceedings are truly transparent in Georgia, as all media requests to receive court session records were granted from the Public Broadcaster when carried out in compliance with law. 

In this context, this blog post looks at Georgian citizens’ perceptions of court transparency in 2014 using CRRC-Georgia’s 2014 Attitudes towards the Judicial System in Georgia survey, funded by East-West Management Institute and the United States Agency for International Development.

Respondents were asked whether, in their opinion, Georgian court proceedings were transparent (a) before and (b) after the milestone 2012 Parliamentary Elections. Only 13% reported that courts were transparent before 2012. This is the period, when only the courts had the authority to record and stenograph court sessions, which could still be banned by the judge’s “reasoned decision”. 34% reported the same for the period after 2012 elections.

Note: The answers to the question, “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the opinion that court proceeding are transparent in Georgia?” were re-coded from a 10-point scale used in the questionnaire into a 3-point scale, where original options 1 through 4 were combined into “Disagree,” options 5 and 6 were combined into “Neither agree nor disagree,” and options 7 through 10 were combined into “Agree.”

Differences in attitudes are evident in different settlement types. Only 7% of Tbilisi residents reported that the courts were transparent before 2012, compared with 13% of urban settlements besides the capital and 17% of rural residents. Perceptions of court proceeding transparency after the 2012 Parliamentary Elections followed a similar pattern with 20% of capital residents, 33% of residents of urban settlements besides the capital, and 44% of rural residents agreeing with the statement that court proceedings were transparent. Rural residents generally appear to believe most in transparency of courts, though, as it is well known, rural residents always report higher levels of trust in institutions.

Hence, people’s perceptions of court transparency in Georgia differ when assessing the situation before and after 2012 Parliamentary Elections, but in both cases the rural and urban populations have very different assessments. 

Take a look at the 2014 Attitudes towards the Judicial System in Georgia survey, here.

Perceived happiness and the strength of social ties

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the fifth blog post in the series. Click here to see the first, second, third, and fourth posts in the series.]

By Mariam Londaridze

Findings of a 2002 experimental study of University of Illinois students suggests that being a part of a strong social network might not guarantee happiness, but is one of the necessary conditions for being happy. Another study showed that both strong (family and friends) and weak (random acquaintances) social ties can contribute to happiness. This blog post examines how Georgians’ reported level of happiness differs by a number of measures of social ties, using data from the 2014 Volunteering and Civic Participation in Georgia survey funded by USAID and East-West Management Institute. Although this is a slightly oversimplified approach, throughout this blog post we refer to those who report being happy as “happy” people and those reporting being unhappy as “unhappy”.

There is a notable difference of 31% between happy and unhappy people reporting whether they enjoy meeting new people or not, amounting to 80% and 49%, respectively.

Note: A 10-point scale was used to record respondents’ answers to both questions. On the scale for the question “Overall, how happy would you say you are?” code 1 corresponded to the answer “very unhappy”, and code 10 corresponded to the answer “very happy”. For the analysis, the original scale was re-coded into a 3-point one, with original codes 1 through 4 corresponding to “unhappy”, codes 5 and 6 – “neither happy nor unhappy” and codes 7 through 10 – “happy”. The scale measuring answers to the statement “I enjoy meeting new people” was re-coded identically.


Happy people report there are “plenty of people” around them they can rely on when they have problems more often than unhappy people. While 61% of happy Georgians report having such people around, only 29% of unhappy ones report the same. The same tendency is observed when asked, “If you were ill, are there people besides those in your immediate household who would look after you without expecting any compensation?” While 79% of happy people reported “yes”, 60% of unhappy people did the same.

While 51% of unhappy people report that they have “helped their neighbor or a friend with some household chores or childcare” during the past 6 months, 77% of happy people report the same. It might not come as a surprise that 70% of happy people in Georgia report feeling being helpful to many people outside their family, while only 38% of unhappy people report the same.

Even though this post did not use a comprehensive measure of strength of social ties, the findings presented suggest that people who report being happy have stronger social ties compared to those who are unhappy. Hence, the findings we referred to in the beginning of this blog post likely hold true for the population of Georgia.
For more on happiness in the South Caucasus, you can find an earlier blog post on Happiness in Georgia, and have a look at the data using CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

CRRC’s third annual Methodological Conference: Transformations in the South Caucasus and its Neighbourhood

The third annual CRRC methodological conference took place on June 26 and 27 at Rooms Hotel, Tbilisi. With over 50 participants and a packed program of presentations, workshops, and speeches the conference drew together policy practitioners and researchers from the South Caucasus and beyond.

Rory Fitzgerald, Director of the European Social Survey and Senior Research Fellow at City University London, delivered an engaging workshop on the challenges of cross-national surveys using the example of the European Social Survey (ESS).

Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Network Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, gave a memorable presentation on a method for measuring ethics in the Armenian education system. The research linked corruption with educational outcomes in Armenia.

Alexi Gugushvili, an Academic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN) Research Fellow in South Caucasus Studies at the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre of the St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, delivered the final keynote speech, Money Can’t Buy Me Love: Foreign Land Ownership Regime and Attitudes in Georgia.  In the speech, Alexi argued that the land ownership debates of recent years in Georgia arise from “the confluence of factors such as the communist legacy, historical memory, rural nationalism, agricultural underdevelopment and inequality”.

For more information, the full program and some of the papers presented at the conference can be accessed here.

Who trusts the police in Georgia?

By Tamar Gzirishvili

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the fourth blog post in the series. Click here to see the first, second, and third posts in the series.]

The 2004 police reform in Georgia was regarded as a successful transformation of one of the most corrupt institutions in the country into a functional entity. The reform included the mass dismissal of police officers, rebranding of units with new equipment and a new image, and increasing the salaries of police officers in order to decrease the incentive to solicit or accept bribes. Largely as a result of this reform, as Alexander Kupatadze claimed in 2012, “Georgia has been portrayed as the ‘safest place in Europe’ with low victimization and low crime rates,” and as crime rates went down, the police earned increased public trust. However, a recent study on the effectiveness of the Ministry of Interior by several Georgian NGOs including Transparency International Georgia, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, and Georgian Democracy Initiative among others highlights a number of violations by the patrol police during searches of people on the streets in 2013. A joint statement by leading Georgian NGOs published in August 2013 identified some of these violations.

The statistics released by the Georgian Ministry of Interior show that the number of registered crimes decreased by 17% from 2013 to 2014, while the number of solved cases increased from 58% to 63% in the same period. However, doubts on the reliability of this data, as well as on the legitimacy of police raids and random searches persist. A public opinion poll conducted by ACT in 2013 shows that 34% of Georgians believe that the crime rate increased in Georgia over the last year, while 18% think it decreased. Considering this quite unstable situation, it is important to understand how levels of trust in the police have changed over time and who trusts the police. Looking at CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey data for the period between 2008 and 2013, this blog post examines the Georgian population’s reported trust in the police by settlement type and education.

During this period, different levels of (dis)trust in police have been recorded, with distrust gradually decreasing and trust fluctuating. The highest level of trust (67%) was recorded in 2011. It decreased to 50% in 2012, but increased to 58% in 2013. The share of those reporting “neither trusting nor distrusting” the police has increased from 19% in 2008 to 30% in 2013, with fluctuations in between.

Note: The original 5-point scale used for this question was re-coded during the analysis into a 3-point scale. Answer options “Fully distrust” and “Somewhat distrust” were combined into the category “Distrust,” and “Somewhat trust” and “Fully trust” into “Trust.” “Neither trust nor distrust” was not re-coded. 

Who trusts the police in Georgia? Interestingly, no differences are observed in trust in the police by age or gender. The 2013 Caucasus Barometer data shows that residents of rural settlements express trust in the police more frequently than those living in urban settlements and in the capital (67%, 52% and 49%, respectively). Consequently, distrust is higher in the capital and other urban settlements (11% in both cases) compared to rural ones (5%). It should be noted, however, that a similar trend can be observed in the reported trust towards any other social institution, with the rural population, overall, reporting higher levels of trust.

There are very small differences in levels of trust in the police by education. Those with secondary or lower education tend to trust police slightly more compared to those with secondary technical or higher education (61%, 56% and 55%, respectively).

Note: The variable measuring education level was re-coded, so that answer options “No primary education”, “Primary education (either complete or incomplete)”, “Incomplete secondary education” and “Completed secondary education” were combined into the category “Secondary or lower.” Answer options “Incomplete higher education”, “Completed higher education”, and “Post-graduate degree” were combined into the category “Higher than secondary education”. “Secondary technical education” was not re-coded.

Overall, the data shows that the share of those who report “neither trusting, nor distrusting” police has increased over the years in Georgia, while the share of those who distrust the police decreased. People living in rural settlements tend to report trusting police more than people living in other settlement types. There are very small differences by level of education and no differences by age or gender.

To explore issues related to trust in social and political institutions, take a look at the Caucasus Barometer data using CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

Finding divorce hard to justify

By Maya Komakhidze

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the third blog post in the series. Click here to see the first and second blog posts in the series.]

A study carried out by the UNDP in 2013 shows that traditional views of gender roles persist in Georgia – women primarily view themselves as housewives, spouses and mothers. Unsurprisingly, in the focus group discussions conducted within the framework of the National Research on Domestic Violence project, respondents associated divorce with “disaster,” “the end of the world” and the shame of a woman returning to her parents’ home after divorce. Female focus group participants stated that a woman should not think of divorce unless violence against her becomes intolerable. In contrast to these attitudes, the official number of divorces has increased in Georgia between 2006 and 2014. This blog post explores Georgians’ views on divorce using data from the CRRC Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey. As previous studies highlighted the changing values of young respondents who “no longer blindly follow traditions” and “do not tolerate from their husbands what their grandmothers and mothers put up with,” the blog post briefly discusses the attitudes of younger Georgians as well.

Slightly over half of the Georgian population reports that divorce is not justified, and this attitude did not markedly change between 2011 and 2013. Nationwide, differences by age groups are within the confidence interval. Differences by gender are also within the confidence interval. Differences by settlement type, on the other hand – namely, differences in the opinions of the population of the capital and the rest of the country – are obvious. The population of the capital demonstrates markedly higher acceptance of divorce compared with those living in other urban and rural settlements.

Note: Answer options to the question, “To what extent can getting a divorce be justified or not?” were re-coded for this and the following chart from a 10-point scale into a 3-point scale, with original options 1 through 4 corresponding to the option “cannot be justified,” 5 and 6 “sometimes justified,” and 7 through 10 “can be justified.”

The chart below shows the answers of the residents of different settlement types broken down by age group. Residents of the capital in all age groups differ in their views from the residents of other urban and rural settlements. In addition, the difference of opinion between younger and older generations is more pronounced in the capital, but less so in other settlements. This suggests that acceptance of divorce in Georgia is more closely related to where a person lives, rather than what generation a person belongs to, although age does appear to be an important factor.

Overall, disapproval of divorce remains strong in Georgia, and more than half the population thinks it cannot be justified. The views of people residing in the capital diverge markedly from the views of rural and urban residents, the most tolerant group being young residents of the capital. Still, despite the younger respondents of  the previous studies, who “no longer blindly follow traditions,” this seems to be the case predominantly in the capital, since young people outside Tbilisi generally do not approve of divorce.

For more information on the Caucasus Barometer data, take a look at the CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool.

Georgia’s e-government – who is it for?

By Davit Mzikyan

[Note:  Social Science in the Caucasus is publishing the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the second blog post in the series. Click here to see the first blog post.]

In the late 1990’s together with the boom in digital and information technologies, the concept of e-government first began to take shape. Since then, e-government has spread throughout the world. In 2007, e-government was launched in Georgia with the creation of the government commission supporting e-governance development, and in 2010, the Data Exchange Agency (DEA) was created under the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. One core function of the DEA is to assist in the development of e-governance. Since, the state has implemented a significant number of e-government projects including my.gov.ge, hr.gov.ge, eauction.ge, rs.ge. Looking to international rankings, progress is visible. According to the UN’s E-government development index, Georgia rose from 72nd place in 2012 to 56th in 2014.

E-government in Georgia will, of course, continue to develop, but, at the same time, it should be useful and efficient – to a certain extent, herein lays a problem. While the government develops and improves its digital services and communications through information and communications technology, a large share of the population – potential e-citizens – lacks knowledge of how to use computers, as well as knowledge of how to use the internet. Survey data from the 2013 Caucasus Barometer (CB) shows that roughly half of the county’s population (52%) has no basic knowledge of how to use a computer. This means that in all likelihood, these people are unable to use e-government services, or other means of communication with governmental bodies via the internet. In many ways, e-government without more or less advanced computer users is like a government without a population – its existence is pointless unless there are people who will benefit from its services. This blog post looks at the potential and perspectives of e-governance in Georgia considering self-assessed level of knowledge of computers by age and settlement type.

Stemming from the common belief that young people are good with technology, while the older generation has trouble using it, one might think that older people are the only group in society which has no basic knowledge of computers. While CB data confirms this impression to a certain extent, as 86% of those 56 and older report little to no knowledge of computers, it also shows that 24% of 18-35 year olds report having no basic knowledge of how to use a computer. Although the majority of 18-35 year olds (76%) reports knowledge of the computer, 14% of them report only a beginner’s level of knowledge. Still, young people are likely most capable of using e-government services, compared with older populations.

Note: The question about computer knowledge asked about the level of knowledge of computer programs, excluding games. Options “Do not know” and “Refuse to answer” are excluded from the analysis throughout this blog post.

In addition to age, knowledge of computers differs by settlement type as well. CB 2013 shows that almost half (46%) of the population of urban settlements outside the capital and 67% of the rural population do not know how to use a computer, compared to 31% of capital residents. Distribution of internet access also falls along these lines. According to the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information’s Statistics of Internet Users in Georgia – 2013 of 434,969 wired internet subscriptions in 2013, 273,396 were in Tbilisi. Imereti region comes in second with only 42,198 subscriptions. According to GeoStat, the population of Tbilisi in 2013 was 1,171,200 while the population of Imereti was 703,900. Therefore, Tbilisi had approximately 233 wired internet subscriptions per 1000 inhabitants, compared with only 60 in Imereti. Hence, in order to improve access to e-governance, the greatest amount of work will be spreading knowledge and access to technology in the populations of villages and urban settlements outside the capital. This is particularly important as residents of the capital can much more easily communicate with governmental bodies or receive services by visiting ministries or agencies, but for citizens living outside the capital there are fewer alternatives.

Nevertheless, in every settlement type, 18-35 year olds report more advanced knowledge of computers than those over 36 years old. In the capital, only 11% of young people report no knowledge of computers compared with 13% of youth residing in urban settlements outside the capital and 43% in rural settlements. Still, in all settlement types, knowledge of computers decreases with age.

This blog post has looked at e-government in Georgia in light of reported knowledge of computers. Despite the fact that the older generation generally knows less about computers and therefore has less access to the services that e-government provides, the young generation often has enough knowledge of computers to use its services. Considering that this young generation will replace the older one, it appears that in the future, with increasing knowledge of computers, e-government will be more widely used in Georgia. Nevertheless, compared to the capital, knowledge is lacking in other urban settlements and, especially, in rural settlements.

For more information, take a look at our earlier blog post on e-transparency in Georgia, or look through our data using the Online Data Analysis tool.

Connections or education? On the most important factors for getting a good job in Georgia

By Nino Zubashvili

[Note: Over the next two weeks, Social Science in the Caucasus will publish the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015. This is the first blog post in the series.]

What is believed to be the most important factor for getting a good job in a country where unemployment is widely considered to be one of the biggest issues? CRRC’s 2013 Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey results show that connections (30%) and education (28%) are the most frequent answers to this question in Georgia. This finding is in line with studies on social capital in various countries, arguing that social ties provide people with better labor market opportunities (Lin, 1999; Mouw, 2003;  McDonald and Elder, 2006), as well as with studies on the role of education in the job market, finding that education is an important resource worth investing in as it provides individuals with access to employment and better chances at  obtaining well-paid jobs (Kilcullen, 1972;Smith and McCoy, 2009). Analyzing both the social ties and perceptions about what is reported as the most important factor for getting a good job, an earlier CRRC blog post, Finding a good job in Georgia, argued that Georgians without connections might be more likely to think that connections are the most important factor for getting a good job. This blog post, on the other hand, looks at how the answers about the most important factors for getting a good job differ by level of education and by employment status, with the aim of finding out who is more likely to think that education matters the most for getting a good job in Georgia.

CB 2013 data shows there is almost no difference in answers to this question between people having different levels of education. The only notable difference can be observed in relation to the perceived importance of professional abilities/work experience. While 17% of those with post-secondary education think this is the most important factor for getting a good job, 8% of those with secondary or lower education report the same.

Note: The answer options for the question, “What is the highest level of education you have achieved to date?”  were grouped as follows: options “No primary education”, “Primary education (either complete or incomplete)”, “Incomplete secondary education”, and “Completed secondary education” were grouped into “Secondary or lower”. Options “Incomplete higher education”, “Completed higher education (BA, MA, or specialist degree)”, and “Post-graduate degree” were grouped into “Higher than Secondary”. For the question, “What is the most important factor for getting a good job in Georgia?” infrequently named answer options – “Age”, “Appearance”, “Talent”, “Doing favors for the ‘right’ people”, and “Other” – were grouped into “Other”.

While there are few differences in perceptions about important factor(s) for getting a good job by education, such differences can be seen by employment status, and specifically between those who describe themselves as self-employed, employed and unemployed. Namely, 34% of the employed think education is the most important factor for getting a good job compared to 25% of the group who report connections. In contrast, the self-employed report that education (20%) is the most important factor for getting a good job less frequently than they report connections (33%). Those who consider themselves to be unemployed also name connections (40%) most frequently.

Note: To the question, “Which of the following best describes your situation?”, the following answer options – “Student and not working”, “Disabled”, “Other”, “Refuse to answer”, and “Don’t know” – were combined into “Other”.

This blog post has shown that while opinions about the most important factors for getting a good job in Georgia do not differ by education level, opinions do vary by employment situation. Those who describe themselves as employed more commonly think that education is the most important factor for getting a good job, while the self-employed and the unemployed most often name connections.

To learn more about CRRC surveys, visit our Online Data Analysis tool.

Junior Fellows at CRRC-Georgia: Facing new challenges

[Note: Over the next two weeks, Social Science in the Caucasus will publish the work of six young researchers who entered CRRC-Georgia’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) in February 2015.]

CRRC’s Junior Fellowship Program (JFP) was launched in 2009 as a Carnegie Corporation initiative within the CRRC, with the goal of providing on-the-job training opportunities in applied research for young social scientists. As the Program’s motto claims, the JFP would be “the best and hardest” experience the Junior Fellows would ever have, opening doors for educational and employment opportunities worldwide. Every year since, a new group of bright young people interested in social science research and selected through a highly competitive and challenging selection process would join CRRC-Georgia for a period of five to nine months.

Once becoming members of the CRRC-Georgia team, Junior Fellows are engaged in ongoing research projects at various stages of implementation both through direct participation and observation. Fellows learn about questionnaire development, pretest, sampling, survey fieldwork and back-checks, data management and analysis, slide production and presentation of results, report writing, the development of discussion guides, and preparation of interview and focus-group write-ups. We believe, Georgian higher educational institutions currently fail to help students acquire most of these skills, and hence the opportunity offered by CRRC-Georgia is quite unique for the Junior Fellows.

Potential junior fellows are expected to have already completed at least a BA degree, although it is not required that this degree is in the social sciences. They have to commit to the program full-time, and hence cannot combine JFP and another job or full-time studies during the fellowship period. In addition to valuable research experience, the Junior Fellows are provided with a number of training sessions on quantitative data analysis using SPSS and Stata statistical software, qualitative data analysis using NVivo software, and report writing.

Thirty two young people have been CRRC-Georgia Junior Fellows to date. After their fellowship period, seven stayed on to work at CRRC-Georgia, five continued their education abroad, and others started jobs at a number of different international and governmental organizations.

We asked some of the former fellows to share their opinions about what the JFP experience gave them, and how it relates to their current educational and employment situations. Here are some answers:

[At CRRC-Georgia] I got a valuable knowledge of how high-quality research should be conducted. While working with qualified people, I obtained knowledge and experience that helped me to advance in my future career. A great team, interesting projects and a great deal of perspectives – this is how I would describe my experience working at CRRC.
Nino Kerkadze, JFP-2012

CRRC is a small family, where one acquires new skills that will be useful [for the rest of your life].
Merab Bochoidze, JFP-2011

CRRC is a place with a wonderful working environment, qualified colleagues and great friends that will give a valuable boost to your career.
Salome Minesashvili, JFP-2011

CRRC-Georgia is currently hosting six junior fellows, and we believe, one of the most exciting, although challenging tasks for the current Junior Fellows is writing blog posts for the CRRC regional blog, Social Science in the Caucasus. In their blog posts, the Junior Fellows can focus on social science issues they are most interested in, apply their data analysis skills, and communicate their findings to an audience of international and local scholars, researchers, and journalists.

For the first time, we have decided to publish the 2015 Junior Fellows’ first blog posts in a single series. The JFP series will start today with Nino Zubashvili’s post and continue for two weeks.

Trust in institutions in the South Caucasus – generating a combined score

Trust in institutions is a widely studied subject in the social sciences – typing 'trust in institutions' into Google Scholar yields roughly 2.5 million results. It is generally believed to have multi-directional relationships with different aspects of social life, with high levels of trust associated with positive phenomena – acceptance of innovation and a good business environment just to name two. While the Social Science in the Caucasus blog has often looked at trust in social and political institutions in each country with a focus on the peculiarities of each country or a particular institution, to date there has not been a description of the overall level of trust in these institutions in each South Caucasus country by major demographic characteristics, such as gender, age or settlement type. This blog post fills the gap by looking at the average level of trust in institutions using 2013 Caucasus Barometer data.

To measure the average level of trust in social and political institutions, a trust in institutions scale was generated for this blog post. The scale was created by adding together responses for the 15 trust in institutions questions asked on the Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey: the health care system, banks, the educational system, the army, the court system, NGOs, parliament, executive government, the president, the police, political parties, media, local government, the religious institution the respondent belongs to, the ombudsman. Respondents in all three South Caucasus countries were asked “Please assess your level of trust toward each [institution] on a 5-point scale, where ‘1’ means “Fully distrust”, and ‘5’ means “Fully trust’.” The original scale was re-coded for this blog post in the following way: codes 1 and 2 (fully distrust and distrust) re-coded as -1; code 3, corresponding to answer “neither trust nor distrust,” re-coded as 0; and codes 4 and 5 (trust and fully trust) re-coded as 1. Scores for each of the 15 institutions were added together in order to generate a trust in institutions scale with -15 on this scale corresponding to distrust to every institution asked about, and 15 corresponding to trust in each of the 15 institutions. By taking the average score in each country, we are provided with a picture of how much South Caucasians trust their countries's major social and political institutions in general, rather than the individual institutions which were asked about.

Without further ado, the results demonstrate that, overall, Armenia is the least institution trusting country in the South Caucasus – by a wide margin. Armenia’s average score is -1.4, while Azerbaijan and Georgia score 3.2 and 3.3, respectively.

Notably, women are slightly more trusting than men in each country. Trust also varies by settlement type and a clear pattern emerges when looking at Armenia and Georgia – trust in institutions is highest in rural settlements followed by urban settlements and the capital. Even in institution distrusting Armenia, the rural population comes in with an almost positive trust score of -0.1. In Azerbaijan, rural settlements still exhibit the highest levels of trust in institutions, but in Baku there is a slightly higher level of trust than in other urban settlements.

No clear cross-country pattern can be observed as regards trust in institutions by age, but each country does have its own distinctive pattern in this respect. In Armenia, the youngest age group is most trusting of institutions – a possible sign of optimism among the youth. Trust decreases with age in Armenia. In Azerbaijan, trust in institutions is slightly lower in the younger age groups and highest in the oldest one.  In Georgia, the youngest and oldest age groups report more or less similar levels of trust (3.2 and 3.0 average scores respectively), with the middle age group (36-55 year olds) reporting trusting institutions most.

In the three South Caucasus countries, the overall trust in social and political institutions is lowest in Armenia. In each country, women express slightly more trust than men, and rural residents report the highest trust. In Azerbaijan, the elderly have the most trust in institutions and in Armenia the least.

To explore the data on trust in institutions more, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis tool here.

How does press freedom in Georgia compare to Eastern Europe?

Georgia’s media was once again ranked the most free in Eurasia in Freedom House’s 2015 Freedom of the Press report, released on April 28, 2015. On Freedom House’s scale, in which countries receive a score from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free), Georgia’s rating of 48 places it firmly in the ‘partly free’ category. Amid an overall worsening picture for press freedom in Eurasia – and worldwide – Georgia showed one of the biggest improvements in the world, with press freedom advancing by 7 points over the previous five years. Reasons for the recent improvements include the 2013 passage of the so-called “must carry” legislation, reduced political influence over broadcast media and increased media competition.

Georgia is currently ranked 93rd in the world in the Freedom House report, on par with Lesotho, Senegal and Tunisia, and above EU member state Greece, which received a score of 51. Since the country’s independence, Georgians have aspired to closer ties with the European Union, so it is important to ask how press freedom in Georgia compares with recent EU member states such as Romania, Hungary and Poland. This blog post tries to answer this question based on the Freedom House data.

Despite the noted improvements, Georgia has always – and continues to – fare worse than most countries in Europe. For instance, Freedom House has classed Poland’s press as free (score 30 or below) every year since 1991, despite a gradual decline since 2003. In contrast, Romania’s media has been considered ‘partly free’ every year since 1994, with greater variation over the 20-year period compared to Poland. Hungary, which was roughly level with Poland between 2004 and 2010, has seen press freedom sharply decline over the past five years, with Freedom House noting it has “suffered from increased state regulation and other interference since 2010.” Still, Freedom House rates all three countries as having a freer press than Georgia.

Hungary provides a good example that even stable democracies can regress, so vigilance is even more necessary in hybrid regimes such as Georgia, which are neither wholly democratic nor wholly authoritarian. Georgia has consistently been considered as such by major democracy indexes, including Freedom House. Indeed, Georgia’s press freedom scores in 2014 and 2015 only bring it back to the level it first reached in 2000, after sharp improvements during the 1990s were followed by a decade of a more restrictive media environment.

Since 2002, Freedom House has looked at three categories when rating press freedom – the legal, political, and economic environments. The scores from each category are summed to produce the final rating. Looking at data from Georgia since this system was first used shows that the biggest factor contributing to the improvement of Georgia’s score has been the political environment in the country. This factor monitors the extent of political control over the content of news media, taking into consideration editorial independence, media diversity and vibrancy, access to information and sources, censorship, and harassment and intimidation of journalists.

The legal environment contributing to press freedom – such as constitutional guarantees on freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary – has slowly worsened since 2002, with slight improvements between 2008 and 2012.

To what extent do indexes such as Freedom House’s reflect how Georgians themselves perceive their media? Data from CRRC’s Caucasus Barometer survey between 2008 and 2013, which asked respondents to assess their level of trust toward the media, show that distrust in the media has remained relatively stable since 2008, ranging between 16% in 2008 and 12% in 2013, all changes being within the margin of error. However, there has been a dramatic decrease in the share of Georgians who state that they fully trust the media – down from 50% in 2008 to 24% in 2013. At the same time, the share of those answering “neither trust nor distrust” the media has almost doubled during the same period. This suggests that public trust in the media is driven in Georgia by other factors than those considered by Freedom House’s index.

Public opinion data suggests that substantial problems remain in the media environment in Georgia. While Georgia’s Freedom House rating is edging closer to other transition countries that are EU member states, such as Hungary and Romania, it is not solely because the situation in Georgia is improving, but because the situation in much of Europe is deteriorating. Notably, Freedom House’s changing press freedom scores do not match up with population’s reported trust in the media in Georgia, which suggests that it may be a good idea for organizations like Freedom House to adjust its scoring methodology.

What do you think could be at the root of this divergence? Join in the conversation on our Facebook page and take a look at this Caucasus Analytical Digest article on political country rankings in the South Caucasus.

What do children and young people in Georgia need to be well and happy?

Georgia ranks 134th out of 156 countries in the United Nations World Happiness Report 2013. The list is topped by some of the Northern and Central European countries – Denmark, Norway and Switzerland – whereas central African states such as Togo, Benin and Central African Republic appear in the bottom positions. Interestingly, all of Georgia’s neighbors score higher than Georgia, with Russia in 68th, Turkey in 77th, Azerbaijan in 116th, and Armenia in 128th place. This ranking takes into account GDP per capita, life expectancy, perceptions of corruption, freedom to make life choices, etc., but what do people and particularly children and young people, think they need for happiness and well-being? This blog post provides some insight into the subject based on a preliminary qualitative study on perceptions of children and young people on well-being conducted in Tbilisi by CRRC-Georgia for the MYWEB project. Twenty in-depth interviews and four focus groups were conducted in November of 2014. 

Taking into consideration their age (11-19 years old), the groups of children and young people who took part in the research largely fit into the ego identity and role confusion category of adolescence identified by prominent psychoanalyst Erik Erikson (1950, 1963). This period is important as children start becoming more independent and thinking about their future careers, relationships, families, and society. At this stage of development, children have to learn the roles they will occupy as adults, and it is interesting to see what the views of youth at this crucial stage of development are on well-being and happiness.

Happiness, well-being and life satisfaction are often discussed together in studies trying to measure human happiness. Unsurprisingly, respondents in the MYWEB study often used well-being and happiness as concepts which complemented each other. Young people identified parents/family, health, financial stability, success and freedom as major components needed for happiness and well-being.

Parents were noted as an important part of well-being and happiness for children of all ages in the study. However, while at 11 one needs to have parents around to feel well and happy, at 18, happiness is related to one’s independence from parents. 

My parents are the most important people for me. They are the ones who bring me up and take care of me [Interview_Girl_12]. 

[Happiness is] doing what you want without your mother and father [Interview_Girl_17].

Even though teenagers crave independence, their parents’ opinions remain highly valued to them. 

While at the onset of the ego identity and role confusion category, children indicate that closeness to and the health of their parents and family are central parts of happiness and well-being, as the years go by, more abstract and value-based concepts appear. 15-16 year old respondents were especially inclined to mention freedom as a major component of well-being and happiness. For example, a 15 year old girl stated, “I think everyone [young people] wants the same – to be free, to be themselves.” A few of them stressed the importance of freedom in general, while others thought of freedom as the ability to do what you want, to say what you want and to choose what you want starting from minor everyday things to choosing a career. In the later years of the ego identity and role confusion category, a set of rights and responsibilities emerges and becomes important for well-being and happiness including the right to vote, drive, have a bank account, and buy cigarettes and alcohol. 

I turned 18, and I gained some rights. I am getting a driver’s license, for example. I opened a bank account, not to mention alcohol and cigarettes [Focus-group_Boy_18].

Importantly, young people in their late teens are also thinking about responsibilities, which vary from study workload to taking more of a lead in their own lives and thinking more about how to live in practical terms.

Even though children and young people sometimes differ in their perceptions of what the most important components of happiness and well-being are when asked about the present, their views are largely similar when asked what will matter for their happiness and well-being as they grow to their parents’ age. All study participants saw themselves having families and children of their own, having jobs/careers and being healthy.

For more on the MYWEB project, see the project website here.