Who’s thinking about temporary and permanent migration?

The population of Georgia has declined after the dissolution of Soviet Union from 5.4 million to 3.7 million according to the latest estimates provided by the Georgian National Statistical Office. The mass emigration of the Georgian population in the 1990s has been attributed to the decline of the economy and military conflicts in the country. Even though the economic situation stabilized starting in the 2000s, the migration flow has not stopped and interest in emigration is quite widespread in Georgia. This blog shows that interest in both temporary and permanent migration is associated with age. In contrast, settlement type, ethnicity and wealth of the household is associated with interest in permanent migration but not temporary and sex, internet usage, and having a relative living abroad with temporary but not permanent migration.

The Caucasus Barometer 2019 survey shows that around 10% of the Georgian population is interested in permanent emigration, while 50% would temporarily leave Georgian to live somewhere else. These figures have been relatively stable over time, and there was no significant change between the 2017 and 2019 Caucasus Barometer surveys.




This leads to the question who is more or less likely to be interested in temporary and permanent migration? A logistic regression suggests that those living in the capital, younger people, and ethnic minorities have higher chances of considering permanent emigration, controlling for other factors. There are no statistically significant differences for other demographic factors.




Household wealth is also associated with intention to migrate. Those with less wealth are more likely to be interested in emigrating from Georgia on a permanent basis.




When it comes to the temporary migration, the same analysis suggests a number of findings. Younger people are more interested in temporary migration than older people. In addition, males are more likely to say they want to leave the country temporarily. Internet use is also associated with thinking about leaving the country temporarily. Having a close relative abroad is associated with a nine percentage point higher likelihood of being interested in temporary migration. There are no statistically significant differences for other demographic factors.




Overall, Georgians are less enthusiastic about leaving the country permanently than temporarily. Being interested in emigration is associated with several factors. When it comes to the permanent emigration settlement type, ethnicity, and economic well-being matter. While for temporary migration internet use and having relatives abroad matter. In both cases age is a significant factor for emigration. In this regard, permanent migration might have more to do with poverty and temporary migration an interest in seeing the world and being in good enough health to do so.

To explore more the Caucasus Barometer 2019 survey findings for Georgia, visit CRRC’s Online Data Analysis portal. Replication code for the data analysis is available at CRRC’s GitHub repository here.

Grit in Georgia

Grit, the idea that passion and perseverance are important determinants of success aside from intelligence, has gained widespread attention in recent years. This stems from the fact that grit is a strong predictor of a number of outcomes like employment and income in life. Previous analysis on this blog suggests that the grit scale is also a strong predictor of employment in Georgia among young people in a select number of rural areas. Whether this works on a nationally representative sample is however an open question. So too is the question what predicts grit in Georgia. This blog uses data from CRRC Georgia’s January 2020 omnibus survey to address these questions.

CRRC Georgia’s omnibus survey contained the full 12 question grit scale. Respondents were asked how much a set of statements described them including things such as “I always finish what I start” and “Failure does not frustrate me.” Items that indicate low grit are reverse coded. In Georgia, the data suggests that the average score is 3.59 out of 5. People score highest on the statement “I am a hardworking person” and lowest on the statement “My interests change from year to year.”



Who reports being grittier in Georgia? A regression that included age, settlement type, sex, and whether or not a person had been internally displaced suggests that people in Tbilisi and IDPs have slightly higher levels of grit, controlling for other factors. In contrast, women and men and people of different ages do not have significantly different levels of grit. Although the analysis showed statistically significant differences between settlement types and IDPs and non-IDPs, the differences are substantively small as depicted on the chart below.




The data also suggest that higher grit scores are associated with a number of achievement related outcomes. When someone’s grit score increases from two to four, their chances of being employed triple, going from 10% to 33%, controlling for other factors. Similarly, the chances that someone has completed higher education increases from 15% to 43% when a person’s grit score increases from two to four. Higher levels of income are also associated with grit.



The above analysis suggests that grit is a good predictor of success in Georgia as it has been shown to be in other locations. However, caution is warranted in suggesting there is a causal relationship at play in the above data. For instance, higher education may help develop grit rather than gritty people being more capable of completing higher education. A similar pattern could be at play when it comes to employment.

Replication code for the data analysis is available here. To find out more about CRRC Georgia’s Omnibus survey, and opportunities to include questions on the survey, click here.

Despite large drop in son preference, a third of Georgians still prefer having a boy to a girl

[Note: This article was co-published with OC Media, here.]

Preferences for the gender of children has a long history around the world and Georgia is no exception. CRRC-Georgia examines how attitudes have changed over the last decade.

In Georgia, having a boy has traditionally been desirable as sons are often considered the main successors in the family line, and they stay at home to take care of their parents as they age in contrast to women who traditionally move in with their husband’s family.

Preferences for sons are manifested in sex-selective abortion. Sex at birth ratios have declined in recent years in Georgia, suggesting lower sex-selective abortion rates. This is also reflected in new data from the 2019 Caucasus Barometer survey that shows that there has been a large decline in son preference in Georgia.

Still, a third of the public prefers having a boy to a girl.

In the 2010 Caucasus Barometer survey, a plurality of families in Georgia said they preferred having a son to a daughter.  The 2019 Caucasus Barometer shows that the preference for boys has dropped by 15 percentage points.

The percentage of those who say that the gender of their child does not matter has increased from 44% to 58%. Even though there is a change in preferences, almost a third of the population (31%) still report they would prefer a boy if a family has only one child.

Note: Answer options Don’t know and Refuse to answer are not presented on the chart above as they made up less than 3% of responses.

To understand people’s preferences for the gender of a child, further analysis of CB 2019 was conducted. The analysis shows that sex, age, and settlement type are associated with attitudes. Women are more likely to prefer having a daughter if there is only one child in a family than men. They are also more likely to report that gender does not matter than men. Correspondingly, women are less likely to report a son preference. People older than 55 are more likely to report preferring a daughter and less likely to name does not matter than people of 18-35 age group. People in urban areas are more likely to report daughter and less likely son than people in rural settlements. People in urban areas aside from Tbilisi are more likely say it does not matter compared with rural people.




Note: On the above chart, base variables for each category are as follows: male, 18-34 age group, Rural, Georgian ethnicity, and higher than secondary education. The wealth index is calculated regarding the items household owns.

Since 2010 the preference for having a son has dropped by 15 percentage points, and the share of those for whom the gender does not matter has also increased considerably. However, twice as many people prefer boys to girls and a third of the population prefers a boy. Son preferences are weaker among women, urban residents, and older people.

Note: The above analysis is based on a multinomial logistic regression analysis, where the dependent variable is the preferred gender of a child if a family has one child. The independent variables are gender, age group, ethnicity, settlement type, education, and wealth. The data used in the blog is available here. Replication code of the above data analysis is available here.

This article was written by Anano Kipiani and Kristina Vacharadze. Anano is a policy analyst at CRRC Georgia. Kristina is the Programs Director. The survey question used in this blog around gender preferences was funded by the United National Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). The views presented in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC Georgia, UNFPA, or any related entity.

Caucasus Barometer 2019 Georgia Now Available

On January 30th, 2020, CRRC Georgia released the 2019 wave of Caucasus Barometer (CB) data for Georgia. CB is the longest running, publicly available household survey which enables longitudinal and comparative analysis of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia between 2008 and 2013, and for Armenia and Georgia for 2008-2019.

CB 2019 is the 9th wave of publicly available survey data in Georgia. The survey included 2,317 respondents and has a maximum margin of error of 4.1%. The results are representative of Georgia as a whole as well as of Tbilisi, other urban areas, and rural areas independently.

Both data and documentation for the survey are available from CRRC Georgia’s online data analysis tool: caucasusbarometer.org. The data has also been uploaded into the tool to enable analysis of the new wave of survey data as well as explore changes in attitudes over time.

In addition to most of the questions on past waves of the survey, this year, the study brought back questions from past waves focused on conflict resolution, attitudes towards gender related issues, and tobacco consumption among other issues.

A public presentation of the results at the Courtyard Marriot accompanied the release of the data. CRRC Georgia’s Research Director presented a number of findings of the survey, with a focus on changes in attitudes over the last ten years. Presentation slides are available in English and Georgian.

Further analysis of Caucasus Barometer 2019 will be forthcoming on CRRC’s Social Science in the Caucasus blog, including analysis of whether attitudes towards conflict resolution has changed, attitudes towards gender, and how people perceive the political environment. To keep up with new blogs, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.