Life Satisfaction: Denmark, Georgia & Moldova Compared

By David McArdle & Jesse Tatum

On a roll with the life satisfaction comparisons, we were curious to place Georgia within a broader context. Using the 2006 Life Satisfaction Index (LSI), which uses subjective well-being indicators to measure people’s levels of life satisfaction and happiness, we chose Denmark, ranked the ‘happiest’ country on earth, and Moldova, the post-Soviet state considered the least happy, as the respective benchmarks (see Table 2, an abridged version of the LSI at the end of this post). Then, with data from the 2008 European Values Survey (EVS) we were able to analyze in greater depth any observations which may or may not pertain to greater life satisfaction with regard to the three divergent states.

Firstly, the EVS shows that far more Danes claim to be completely satisfied with life compared with Georgians and Moldovans. The raw numbers themselves are telling: in all, nearly 30 percent of the Danes polled claimed to be completely satisfied with life. Secondly, the EVS data revealed that over twice as many Moldovans than Georgians claimed complete life satisfaction (186 vs. 79; see Table 1). These numbers are fascinating all the more so because Moldova is ranked marginally lower on the LSI than Georgia.



For the large number of Danes completely satisfied with life, factors such as life control, stated happiness, health and national pride seem to play a more determining role compared with those completely satisfied with life in Georgia and in Moldova. The number of those who ranked religion as very important, however, did not rise with increased satisfaction.

Similar to Denmark, those completely satisfied with life in Moldova also indicated that they are more in control of life and happier compared with respondents in Georgia. The importance of religion was, as in Denmark, less acute than in Georgia.

Life Control, aka ‘agency’

It is in ‘happy’ Denmark but also, surprisingly, in ‘unhappy’ Moldova where the respondents completely satisfied in life also more often stated that they have greater control over their lives. In Georgia, however, those who are completely satisfied with life did not answer that they are also in control of it with the same frequency as in the other two countries. Feeling in control of life, then, seems to play less of a role in Georgia in terms of life satisfaction than it does in the world’s happiest country and in the least happy post-Soviet state.

In Denmark a clear majority of 72 percent of those fully satisfied with life chose marks 8–10 on the scale where ‘10’ equals complete control over one’s life. In fact, in further confirming the recent label of ‘world’s happiest’, only 25 of all the Danes polled said they were completely dissatisfied with life.

With Moldova the case for greater life control and greater life satisfaction commingling is almost as clear as in Denmark. Though far fewer people overall indicated total life satisfaction, fully 62 percent of the satisfied respondents said that they also had a great degree of control over their life. At least in Denmark and Moldova, perhaps being in control of life may help to steer one’s perceptions of life satisfaction in a positive direction.

Compared with both Denmark and Moldova, life control appears to be less of a factor in leading Georgians to higher levels of assessed life satisfaction. For example, nearly the same percentage of the respondents fully satisfied with life and those completely dissatisfied with life said they have a great deal of control over their life (38 percent vs. 36 percent).

Happiness

As was duly noted in the previous blogs, the South Caucasus respondents’ answers on life satisfaction and on subjective happiness generally are not parallel. People say that they can be happy without being satisfied in life, and vice versa. But the EVS figures on Denmark appear to buck this trend, as satisfied Danes are also happy Danes. In all, 75 percent of those completely satisfied with life also asserted to be ‘very happy’.

In Moldova, too, people completely satisfied with life also answered that they were ‘very’ or ‘quite happy’ (28 percent and 63 percent, respectively). In fact, the answer patterns of Moldovans satisfied in life rose accordingly with levels of greater happiness, revealing that perhaps the two do complement each other in the country, in contrast with Georgia. In addition, this shows that although Danes are said to be happier than Moldovans in general, the responses follow a similar pattern: completely satisfied respondents in both countries also say that they have greater life control and are happier, compared with Georgia.



Health

Life satisfaction levels and health are factors which correlated strongly in the LSI study. Similarly, the EVS data reveals that this potential link is far more pronounced in Denmark than it is in Georgia and Moldova. In Denmark 58 percent of respondents who were completely satisfied with life said too that their health was ‘very good’.

In Moldova, however, of those who feel completely satisfied in life, only 11 percent replied that they were in ‘very good’ health. The majority of the respondents (72 percent) claimed to be in either ‘good’ or ‘fair’ health. What is more, 17 percent of those who were completely satisfied in life stated that they were either in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ health, a marginally higher number than those who considered their health to be ‘very good’.

In Georgia people with greater life satisfaction were less likely than their Danish counterparts to say they were in ‘very good’ health. For example, Georgians completely satisfied with life are more likely to be in ‘good’ (45 percent) than in ‘very good’ health (27 percent). Moreover, on the opposite end of life satisfaction, sizable numbers of Georgians completely dissatisfied with life said they were in ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ health (27 percent and 17 percent, respectively), figures which were much higher than those in Denmark.

In short, according to the combination of the responses, health could possibly be associated with helping people to fend off dissatisfaction rather than acting to yield complete life satisfaction. In Denmark a stronger linkage can arguably be made whereby very good health equates with complete life satisfaction. However, this same link between greater health and greater life satisfaction is less evident from the responses in Georgia and Moldova, as even those completely satisfied with life are more likely to see themselves in fair health than in very good health.

Pride in one’s country

If judged by the answer patterns in the three countries, greater national pride sits alongside higher life satisfaction only in Denmark, where 61 percent completely satisfied with life also are ‘very proud’ of being a Danish citizen, whereas only 1 percent of those completely satisfied said they were ‘not at all proud’ of being a citizen. In Moldova, however, being ‘very proud’ of being a national citizen was far less important for life satisfaction levels. And in Georgia nearly all indicated that they are proud of being a Georgian citizen, even for those completely dissatisfied with life (71 percent). Similar to religion, for instance, these figures show that feelings of pride in one’s country can flourish without high levels of life satisfaction.

The figures in Moldova, a country divided, reveal that both those satisfied and those dissatisfied in life were lukewarm on the issue of national pride. Overall, more people said they were still ‘very proud’ (36 percent of those completely satisfied) than otherwise, but the figures were much lower than in Denmark and Georgia, with more people choosing the second option (‘quite proud’) and higher numbers selecting ‘not very proud’, compared with the other two countries.



Religion

The Georgians, whether satisfied or not, appear to cherish religion uniformly. Completely satisfied Danes, however, seem to answer in general consensus (51 percent) that religion is not as important irrespective of life satisfaction levels. Whilst the Moldovans, more often than not, responded that religion is quite important regardless, once again, of life satisfaction scores. In other words, the importance one places on religion appears to be a country-specific issue and does not tie in with overall life satisfaction levels.

Conclusion

Of course there are massive political, social, and economic differences between these three countries. But we wanted to use them here as benchmarks within Europe with which to compare Georgia, as one would in other major indices (e.g. TI’s Corruption Perceptions, the Big Mac, and the Human Development Indices). In the final analysis, however, the results are still fascinating and call for further research. For this, the EVS {HL} offers a supremely user-friendly interface with which one can explore the data sets to find other factors which may help to explain why some countries are happier than others.

Respondent Evaluation | A Great Tool for Looking into Survey Interviews

What are the patterns in how the respondents are rated by the interviewers? The relevance of this question is beyond doubt, as patterns in such ratings allow for an idea of the reliability of the data as well as for more general insights into the settings in which interviewers are gathering data. Relevant data has been gathered in the Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey for years, enabling us to analyze the impressions that interviewers have gained during their work in the South Caucasus.

One particularly interesting endeavour is to make comparisons between the perceptions of interviewers in the three countries – Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. In all three cases, interviewers were asked to evaluate issues affecting the interview such as levels of distraction, frequency of the need for clarifications, or the extent to which respondents were reluctant to answer questions. Perceptions of the personal characteristics of respondents, such as sincerity, comfort and interest, are also recorded. Patterns of interviewer’s ratings can subsequently be identified by looking at several of the measured variables. These also allow us to filter out interviews in which respondents were uncomfortable, or seemed insincere.

One first interesting finding is that interviewers in Azerbaijan seem to face more obstacles in the interviewing process when compared with their counterparts in Armenia or Georgia. More concretely, respondents in Azerbaijan are more frequently in need of clarifications of questions and also show more often a lack of knowledge on a certain subject. Only in slightly above 20 percent of the cases were the interviewers in Azerbaijan ‘never’ (i.e. not throughout the entire interview) confronted with such situations. By contrast, in the neighbouring countries, such instances comprise over 30 percent (see Figures 1 and 2). A comparison between Armenia and Georgia shows that inhabitants of Georgia seem to have difficulties in slightly fewer instances, and in particular appear more knowledgeable to the interviewers. (Interestingly, there is some evidence that respondents in all countries seem to face more difficulties in answering questions without clarifications in 2009 as compared to 2007-08, but this is yet another topic.)

Given the above findings, it is then arguably strange that Azerbaijani and Armenian respondents were labelled as "more comfortable" compared with the Georgian respondents (see Figure 3). In other words, although Georgians are perceived by their interviewers to have less trouble during the interview (as reflected in need of clarifications and lack of knowledge), this does not coincide with a more comfortable behaviour even if one might have expected that. However, in all three instances, there is a comparably low number of nervous respondents (slightly less than 10 percent), which suggests that nervousness is not a particularly serious problem in any of the surveys.

Finally, of the many interviewer ratings the CB includes, another remarkable one is the evaluation of interest and involvement. The first striking aspect here is that in all three countries, most respondents do not appear to be interested or involved during the interview. Moreover, Georgians are least interested/involved in the interview process (less than 30 percent were assessed as interested), whereas Azerbaijanis are the most interested (approximately 45 percent; see Figure 4). Armenian subjects are, as in the above cases, perceived to be somewhere in the middle (40 percent). Thus, while interviewers in Azerbaijan seem to be more often confronted with a lack of knowledge and confusion about questions, interviewers in Georgia more often come across higher levels of perceived disinterest and lack of comfort on the part of the their respondents.

 

To be sure, these ratings are done at the end of the interview, and we know that we cannot ask complex questions at this point anymore. Typically we've been talking for 45 minutes and have exhausted the patience of the respondent. Nevertheless, these findings remind us that we need to keep our questionnaires short.

While we know that particular wordings may lead to slightly different interpretations in different languages, the interviewer ratings give us a glimpse into what is going on, and thus help us improve the quality further. Survey work is nearly never perfect. It's a process of continuous improvement. Plenty of opportunities for researchers to analyze the data more closely.

The Public's View of Constitutional Reform in Georgia

The 2010 Georgian Constitutional Reform in the Eyes of the Public report is now available. As a product of the study commissioned by the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) and carried out by CRRC-Georgia, it presents the results of the opinion survey on constitutional and governance processes and their development in Georgia.

According to the main findings, the majority of Georgians have a general lack of awareness of their rights and of the institutions enshrined in the Constitution, and they do not feel that they have been fully consulted about the constitutional reform process. As such, the report calls for greater public engagement and confidence-building measures to be undertaken throughout the country.

The summarizing analysis is written in Georgian and in English (the latter starting on p. 16), and is followed by reader-friendly charts (pp. 25ff.) which greatly enhance the findings. To read the full report, click here.

The South Caucasus population asks for a stronger European Union

The results of the CRRC’s 2008 Caucasus Barometer (CB) reveal that the population of South Caucasus (SC) is in favour of the EU taking on a stronger foreign policy stance. The SC is considered a region as a whole here, as EU policy towards the SC arguably tends to adopt a regional approach. However, it must be said that Azerbaijan is slightly less enthusiastic about the EU overall than Armenia and Georgia (usually 10 points fewer), which each have very similar results.

The EU does not seem to be perceived as a credible military power and the disagreement about the Iraq war among EU member states is still weakening the image of a united EU. Indeed, 88 percent of the respondents think that the EU should have a rapid military reaction force and 92 percent of them estimate that the EU should agree on a unified stance towards a conflict when an international crisis occurs.



The EU should have a rapid military reaction force that can be sent quickly to trouble spots where an international crisis occurs



When an international crisis occurs, EU Member States should agree on a common position

The idea of a European common voice is furthermore promoted by 84 percent of the respondents who agree with the following statement: “the EU should have its own foreign minister who can be a spokesperson for a common EU position.”


The EU should have its own Foreign Minister who can be a spokesperson for a common EU position

The SC arguably supports an independent EU policy, as 87 percent of people are in favour of an EU seat at the UN Security Council. Surprisingly, 85 percent of the respondents consider that the EU should have an external policy independent of the US. This second statement seems staggering when most of the critics regarding the lack of the EU's commitment in the post-Soviet countries evoke the fear of the EU to be “seen by Russia as a 'geopolitical adversary'” (Halbach, “The EU fears being seen by Russia as a 'geopolitical adversary' in post-Soviet space”, Caucaz.com, 10 Sept. 2006).

The EU should have its own seat at the UN Security Council




EU foreign policy should be independent of US foreign policy

Generally speaking, the EU is seen as an ally rather than a threat by people in the SC. Indeed, according to the research done by the International Republican Institute in 2010 for Georgia and in 2008 for Armenia, 24 percent of the Georgians and 29 of the Armenians see the EU as a possible political or economic partners, compared with the 6 percent of Armenians and the 1 percent of Georgians who see the EU as the greatest political and economic threat. However, the EU might suffer to be seen as a weak ally compare to other international powers as Armenia still considers that Russia is its main partner in the region, Georgians ranks the US as their main partner and Azerbaijan historically sees Turkey as its first ally.












For all the information on the data, you can have a look at CRRC and IRI websites on
http://crrccenters.org/sda/
http://www.iri.org/explore-our-resources/public-opinion-research/public-opinion-polls#three .

This post is also available on CRRC-Armenia blog
http://crrcam.blogspot.com/

Attitudes toward the West | Caucasus Analytical Digest

Following an article on Georgians’ attitudes toward Russia, CRRC Fellows Therese Svensson and Julia Hon have written a new piece for CAD, entitled “Attitudes toward the West in the South Caucasus”. Their article looks at citizens’ views on three areas of relations — political, economic and cultural — between the South Caucasus and the West, in particular NATO, the US and the EU. The data were derived from the South Caucasus–wide 2007 and 2008 Data Initiatives (DI), as well as from the 2009 EU survey that was conducted in Georgia.

The article highlights several figures which show that citizens in the South Caucasus, and especially those in Georgia, are keen to cooperate with the West on economic and political levels. For example, on a ten-point scale — where '10' equals full cooperation and '1' is no cooperation — 80 percent of the Georgian respondents ranked their desire for economic cooperation with the U.S. in the top five categories, compared with 71 percent in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The percentages on potential NATO membership, by contrast, vary more widely in the three countries: while 42 percent in Georgia said they are fully in favor of membership, 21 percent said the same in Azerbaijan, and only 10 percent in Armenia.

But the most fascinating figures arise when the subject of cultural relationships comes up. Although citizens in the South Caucasus are open to friendship and doing business with citizens of the West, they seem less keen on Western cultural influences, which they view as potential threats to their own cultural identity and traditions. In all, 64 percent and 63 percent in Armenia and Azerbaijan, respectively, either strongly or somewhat agreed with a statement that "Western influence is a threat to [national] culture". Twenty-four percent in Georgia said the same, while 34 percent chose "neutral" as their answer.

Perhaps understanding exactly which elements of Western culture are seen to be threatening, and in what way, would be a topic of additional interest.

For the full article, go here.

What Makes Georgians Happy? Results from World Values Survey

By David McArdle

What makes Georgians satisfied with life? Religion, education, one’s financial situation, and levels of happiness are often assumed to be crucial in determining a person’s overall level of life satisfaction. Results yielded from the World Values Survey (WVS) reveal that religion does indeed play an important role vis-à-vis life satisfaction while levels of education, financial situations, and levels of individual happiness, do so as well, but to a lesser extent.

Religion is of paramount importance across Georgia. For instance, a staggering 94 percent of those who claimed to be completely satisfied in life felt that religion was ‘very important’. Yet, those respondents who were completely unsatisfied with life as a whole displayed less emphasis on the prevalence of religion as a significantly lower 76 percent judged religion to be ‘very important’.

A university education also slightly increases the chances of life satisfaction as a whole as 42 percent of those respondents who claimed complete life satisfaction had obtained a university-level education. Interestingly, however, 31 percent of respondents who asserted to be completely dissatisfied in life satisfaction also had a university-level education. The majority of those who stated they were completely dissatisfied in life as a whole were respondents whose education reached complete secondary: university preparatory type education (33 percent) thus showing that whilst one might expect those with lower levels of education to have less life satisfaction, this is not always the case.



Perhaps Georgians do not always equate money with overall life satisfaction. With regard to the financial situation of the household, 23 percent of those completely satisfied in life as a whole were also completely satisfied with the financial situation of the household. Oddly, however, the most common response to this query given by those who were completely satisfied with life as a whole stated that they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the financial situation of the household. In other words, they appeared indifferent which suggests that the financial situation of the household is not a key factor in determining overall satisfaction in life.

In many cases, people who are satisfied with life also indicate that they are happy. Comparing overall life satisfaction with levels of happiness shows that fully 92 percent purport to be ‘very’ or ‘rather happy’. But life satisfaction and happiness are not always synonymous. Paradoxically, from those who claim to be completely dissatisfied in life, for instance, 32 percent still claim to be ‘very’ or ‘rather happy’. Georgians, hence, appear to find satisfaction in other forms rather than a conventional factor such as individual happiness, as 8 percent of those completely satisfied with life also say that they are not very happy. Further research on the aforementioned paradox may be beneficial for those interested in the region and/or on the topic of what factors provide overall life satisfaction for people.



Interested in finding out more? The Georgian data (collected by GORBI, sponsored with the help of CRRC) is available for your online analysis, here.

Post-Soviet States’ Democratic Decline: Results from Freedom House Report

Freedom House has just released its Nations in Transit report for the year 2010. The report attempts to quantify democratic development in Central European and Eurasian states by observing 8 separate factors – for instance, Electoral Process and National Democratic Governance - which affect the level of democracy in a given country. Each category is graded on a score of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level of democratic progress, and 7 representing the lowest. Much of the media attention has typically focused on Russia. The report concluded with a new low for Russia with regard to its democracy score (6.14) and an overall rapid decline in the last decade attributed mostly to the Putin’s extreme centralization policies. However, it is important to look too at the lack of progress being made in the South Caucasus countries and what this may mean for future democratic efforts in a region prevalent to Russia’s foreign policy goals. Of the South Caucasus countries, democratic development in Georgia and Armenia remained stagnant, while in Azerbaijan it deteriorated.

Armenia’s scores remained exactly the same as those in the previous year, having fluctuated up and down by half a point over the last decade. Of particular concern is the level of corruption in Armenia, which many Armenians claim as having a negative impact on their everyday lives. The corruption rating remained at 5.5 and down from a decade-long trend of 5.75. Similarly, ratings for the country’s electoral processes, national democratic governance, and judiciary remained the same as the year before. To view CRRC's reports on corruption in Armenia, please click here.

Georgia’s scores also remained the same as those in 2009. Of great concern is Georgia’s level of national democratic governance. Whilst the national democratic governance rating remains at an uncomfortable 6.0, the report notes that despite political unrest and demonstrations, both protestors and the government mostly refrained from violence, which had been a severe problem in previous years. As a result, it may be construed that Georgia is making certain attempts at progress in this realm.

In Azerbaijan democratic progress regressed somewhat from the previous year, particularly in the area of judicial independence. In the NIT report, the judiciary is characterized as dependent upon the executive branch, whose power it helped to expand by supporting the 2009 referendum on the constitution. It is also judged to be highly corrupt, inefficient, and that it provides no mechanism for human, property, or civil rights violations. Like Russia, overall democratic progress in Azerbaijan has steadily deteriorated over the last decade.

Each category measured by the report for Russia has experienced either a decrease in democratic scores or has remained the same. In other words, the report has found no signs of improvement in any of the 8 categories. The overall democracy score has slipped from 4.58 in 1999-2000 to an “abysmal” 6.14. Whilst Russia views the South Caucasus as within its sphere of influence it is clear that Russia can offer little in the way of guidance when democracy promotion is concerned.

To see other posts on this blog on previous Freedom House reports, please click here.

Apologies | Site Maintenance

We have had some problems with the HTML in rendering paragraph breaks -- apologies if this has put multiple posts into your RSS feeds. The problem is that Blogger introduces some unusual breaks when we paste text into the online interface. We've tried cleaning all the HTML out, but this doesn't seem to be doing the trick quite yet, so we were experimenting. We hope that this is fixed now.

Who is Russia's Enemy? | Pew Research Center Data

You will have seen that we are much intrigued by the Pew Research Centers. They do surveys on global attitudes, and increasingly we are trying to make some of our questions cohere with their efforts, so that we have a more telling international comparison. (This isn't always easy, since replicating their question may go at the expense of continuity of our old questions.) 

Survey Snippet | WorldCup

Looking at the recent data from the Global Attitudes Project of the Pew Research Center, we came across a curious survey item. Who do people across the world think will win the World Cup?

Look at the table and you will see that you either think your own country will win -- or it is Brazil. And this is pretty consistent throughout the world. It's funny both how people project into their own countries, and then how beyond that the concept of soccer seems to be tied up with Brazil.

Even if you're not interested in soccer, it tells you something about how surveys work. Arguably, it is because Brazil stands out as the premier soccer country, because hardly anyone begrudges the Brazilians for winning, and because not a lot of other concepts travel along when you think about Brazil.

Does begrudging matter? It may well: it's the Argentinians and the Spaniards who were least likely in relative terms to put the Brazilians first. And it is the South Koreans and the Chinese who put Brazil first, suggesting that distance may play a role. 

Note that the Brazilians also have the highest opinions of themselves, followed by the Spanish, the Argentinians, and the Germans. (Maybe the tendency to believe that your own team will win is the same mechanism that contributes to countries sliding into war, as identification morphs into prediction of success.) 

At the same time it's curious how many people say they don't know or refused to answer. We know that in the United States soccer is not that popular. But what happened in Poland and Turkey? And in Pakistan? 

Once you look through the other survey results, you see that Pakistan had some of the highest rates of people who said they don't know, or refused to answer. (On soccer, the French were the most opinionated.) It's following these threads that makes reading survey results exciting. The Pew Research Centers have done an excellent job at making information available (their detailed report here), allowing us to trawl through their results. Future updates soon.

Greatest Threats Facing the World | Data from the 2009 CB & the Global Attitudes Survey

By Jesse Tatum and Vazha Burduli

From environmental catastrophe to violence, our world currently faces serious challenges with long-term consequences. In this context, what do people in the Caucasus consider to be the most acute problems?

Regarding the greatest threats to the world today, the spread of nuclear weapons and poverty are foremost on the minds of people in the South Caucasus, according to the 2009 CB.

The CB asked respondents to choose from a list of six dangers which one they believe poses the greatest threat to the world. In Georgia and Azerbaijan, the spread of nuclear weapons topped the list, with 44 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, in Armenia, poverty was chosen first, with 35 percent, just edging out the threat of the spread of nuclear weapons. Curiously, more people in Azerbaijan seemed to worry about AIDS and infectious diseases -- something still to look into.

The 47-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which also asks people which threats currently pose the greatest risk to our world, found that pollution and environmental problems are increasingly taking over the top spots as the most pressing world dangers. (Note that CRRC's question was phrased slightly differently, and offered another option.)

Compared with the Global Attitude Survey's results, people in the South Caucasus are less concerned with pollution and environmental problems than in other parts of the world, especially Sweden, Canada and East Asia (China, S. Korea and Japan).

The amount of data available between the two surveys is extensive indeed. We hope you will check out Pew's report, and then compare other figures with our CB in order to see where South Caucasian's world views fit into the international context. In the future, we plan to post more comparisons of this sort.

Language Learning in Georgia

In winter 2008, CRRC together with the American Councils conducted some research on the ways foreigners learn languages in Georgia. Hans Gutbrod and Malte Viefhues have recently published a paper in CRIA, analyzing the results and providing interesting insights into incentives to language learning and the importance of Georgian and Russian for foreigners in the country.

The data indicates that while Georgian is very important for living in Georgia, Russian is more useful in a professional context. This could explain why, on average, the respondents – many of whom have worked in different CIS countries – have a better level in Russian than in Georgian. As these languages serve in different domains, knowing one did not keep the respondents from learning the other: 87 percent of the respondents with Russian skills know some Georgian as well.

To read the full paper, visit the CRIA's website.

Demographic statistics in Georgia | Results from international research

On June 1, the Georgian Center for Population Research (GCPR) and the French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), with support from the French Embassy in Georgia, held a seminar on mortality- and fertility-related issues in Georgia. Irina Badurashvili from GCPR and France Meslé, Jacques Vallin and Geraldine Duthé from INED presented the results of their collaborative research dealing with mortality trends and increased male sex ratio at birth.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuing violent conflicts, Georgia experienced an increase in migration and a deterioration of the civil registration system. Consequently, yearly population counts produced by the Georgian Department for Statistics were considered unreliable and independent experts started producing their own estimates of demographic indicators based on data from different sources (e.g. the Civil Register, the Ministry of Health and data collected through surveys).

GCPR has corrected official infant mortality rates based on the Georgian Reproductive and Health Surveys of 1999 and 2005, and corrected official statistics on deaths and populations over the last years. As a result, the life expectancy at birth in Georgia is estimated to be 68.8 years for males and 76.7 years for females for 2006, which is somewhat lower than certified Georgian statistics.

Corrected life expectancy trends at birth allows for reliable comparisons between the Caucasus and other countries. According to GCPR’s research, both Georgia and Armenia show a positive life expectancy trend in comparison with for example Russia, but a negative trend in comparison with other European countries. Comparisons of population figures between Georgia and most European and post-Soviet countries can be found on INED’s website.

Even though the quality of statistical data in Georgia has improved significantly over the years, official numbers for sex ratio at birth and estimates of infant deaths still remain in doubt. You can read more about sex ratios in Georgia here on the blog and on GCPR’s website.

On GCPR’s website you will also find information about research projects and a large amount of data on demographics in Georgia.

Election Maps | Who Did Your Neighbors Vote For?

Our GIS Analyst, Dato Sichinava, is now loading preliminary results onto our election maps. If you want to compare regional distribution of results, you can do so very quickly through the portal. Below you see the votes for the Alliance throughout Georgia. Note that on the portal, you can grab the handle (see the arrow) and shift it back and forth.

We also have the results for the United National Movement, and the Christian Democrats. More stuff will come online soon, and we are about to make the maps bigger, so that you can play better -- check it out here. 


We also have preliminary results for the precinct level in Tbilisi. Note that this is not yet available on the portal. But it shows a fascinating contrast of support. 

Unsurprisingly, Vake is among the strongest supporters of Alasania. Parties should find this data very useful to target their campaigning in the future.

(We would like to thank the National Democratic Institute and the Swedish International Development Agency, Sida, for their support in generating this data, and making it broadly available.)

SMS Survey | First Insights

So! Our SMS project worked quite well. Critical to its success was the systematic error control early in the day. Our interviewers still made a fair number of mistakes in the early morning. It was the first time we introduced this system, and transferring the number correctly to SMS requires significant attention to detail.

Whenever the system flagged mistakes, we called the interviewer to check, and implicitly to remind them to get it right the next time. The entire CRRC team took turns, with two colleagues in each shift, in addition to the other people in our E-Day room (the cheerful morning group pictured above). Note that we chose codes that made a transposition error unlikely. Since "Yes" was 1, and "No" was 3, you'd have to go across the keyboard to get that wrong. 

The chart shows the error rates. In the morning, we quickly manage to reduce the errors by almost half in the first hour. In the afternoon, some exhaustion sets in, but the interviewers recover in the early evening. In the last hour, however, error rates almost quadruple within an hour -- our interviewers are well and truly tired. 

More detail on this to follow. We will also enter the paper questionnaires, and then compare with the SMS results, to see whether there actually were any transposition errors. For us, this was an exciting day. 

Testing Mobile Innovation in our Surveys

In running an election-day survey (not an exit poll, which we are not so enthused about), we have decided to attempt something new: we are now aggregating the information via SMS. This gives us the information in real time, and the data will be available for immediate analysis the moment the last SMS has been received. On the image below you see how this looks on our screen. Interviewers send in a code response where letters (A, D, G, and so on) signify the question number, and the numbers are the response chosen. So the letter M, for example, stands for the question "Did you, or anyone from your family, have any problems with the voter’s list?", and "3" stands for "no".

To be sure, this only works with short questionnaires, and has forced some compromises in the answer options, which we have to keep simple. However, it is an interesting step forward. While there are solutions with Personal Digital Assistants, these are expensive and would make our interviewers walk around with expensive, possible distracting gadgets. So SMS seems a good alternative for now. Implementing this project ended up being a lot of work: creating a Virtual Private Network connection with the main mobile providers (Magti and Geocell both were helpful), programming the software to disaggregate messages, writing manuals, training interviewers, testing whether it all works, building redudancies so that it becomes a robust system, and creating a system for checking errors. Errors are flagged automatically in red (see below), and we call back interviewers to correct. 

We are also trying this SMS technology with the election monitors of ISFED, since this offers a rapid way of aggregating their results. At this point this is run as a pilot, to test the technology, and how it is adopted by monitors. Parts of the software have been provided by the National Democratic Institute, and the Open Society Foundation Georgia has generously funded this effort. A lot of effort has been invested by the entire team, but especially by Irakli Naskidashvili, Tbilisi's IT wizard, and Jonne Catshoek, our Crowdsourcing Project Manager.

This will all happen today, and we will let you know how it worked, and where we want to take these applications in the future. One of the great things at CRRC is that we have this chance to goof around and try new things. 

Election Day Portal

To track what is going on during election day, Georgia's leading monitoring organizations, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA) and Transparency International (TI) have created a joint portal, VoteGeorgia.ge. 

This will join the feeds from the three organizations, while also giving you a map with region-specific information. The website has been designed by TI. NDI provided critical coordination, as well as access to survey results. CRRC is providing the maps for the effort. We work with GeoCommons to provide the data on the maps. Below a snapshot of a pre-election complaint. 

Note that the maps take time to load. They are not as fast and snazzy as Flash-based maps would be, since they get populated by data that is continuously updated, during the election day and after. Here the technology is still catching up -- we are also using this as an exercise to learn how best to make mapped information available over the Internet. 


We know there are some snags -- it does not work too well with the Safari browser, for example. Further suggestions gratefully received in the comments. This is a pilot, and we want to use this opportunity to get everything right in the future. 


On CRRC's side, David Sichinava, our GIS and Database Analyst, and Jonne Catshoek, our Crowdsourcing Project Manager, were the ones who made this happen. This work has been supported generously  by the Open Society Foundation Georgia. 

Levels of trust in the banks in Georgia: Changes over the past two years

Banking is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Georgian economy, a point which was underlined in a 2009 report from the Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia. But does this development mean that society views banks as trustworthy partners for households (HH) in Georgia?

In fact, from 2008 to 2009, the overall level of trust in banks has decreased in Georgia, especially for the HHs who say they have savings and for those who say they have debts. This could in part be due to the global financial crisis which, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s (EBRD) 2010 country strategy report, significantly affected the Georgian economy. The crisis revealed the financial sector’s weaknesses around the world and led to widespread doubt concerning the reliability of banks.

Households & Savings

For the small number of HHs who say they have savings (9 percent in 2008, 6 percent in 2009), the level of trust in banks has significantly decreased. According to the 2008 Caucasus Barometer (CB, previously referred to as the “Data Initiative”), combining the “fully trust” and “somewhat trust” categories shows that 60 percent of HHs with savings said they trusted banks. In 2009, however, this figure fell to 49 percent. As a place to put one’s money and keep it safe, apparently, fewer people view banks in a positive light.

Even for HHs without savings – the majority of the respondents – the level of trust in banks has fallen: in 2008, 53 percent of them had said that they trusted banks, whereas only 42 percent said the same in 2009 (see Figure 1). At the same time, the number of those saying specifically they distrust banks remained the same, hinting at a high degree of uncertainty with regard to banks among the population.



Households & Debts

The level of trust in banks among HHs who reported that they have debts saw an even larger drop. Although these could be debts either to banks or to private persons, without interest, this drop could be linked to the fact that it has become increasingly difficult for HHs to take out loans to help alleviate any debts they have. Overall, 43 percent (2008) and 42 percent (2009) of the HHs claimed to be indebted. Of these HHs, 59 percent said that they trusted banks in 2008, though only 45 percent claimed the same in 2009.

On the other hand, the level of trust remained broadly similar in those HHs who say they do not have debts. Forty-nine percent of them had said that they trusted banks in 2008, while 42 percent said the same in 2009.




Conclusion

The 2008 Caucasus Barometer was carried out from the second half of October to the middle of November, and these figures offer a snapshot of how the global financial crisis may have taken its toll on HHs’ trust in banks in Georgia. Still, there are certainly other factors which play a role, and further research and commentary are needed. We invite you to access the 2008 CB dataset to make your own comparisons here.

Caucasus Barometer | A New Name for the CRRC's Data Initiative

The CRRC’s annual Data Initiative Survey will be renamed into the Caucasus Barometer starting from 2010. At CRRC, we think that the new name better reflects the essence of the survey and is more understandable for the general public and the journalists.

The Data Initiative was first launched in 2004. Since 2007, a representative sample of approximately 2,000 respondents is interviewed annually in each of the counties. They answer core questions about household composition, social and economic situation of households, employment status, assessments of social and political situation in the countries, as well as respondents’ perceptions about direction of life. In addition, we include questions about media, health, crime, and other topical issues.

The change of the name, however, will not cause any changes in the way the survey is carried out – it is still an annual survey conducted every fall in all countries of the South Caucasus, employing the same methodology and the same survey instrument. Its major goal is to get reliable longitudinal empirical data to understand various aspects of the processes of social transformation in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. We are committed to ensure the highest possible scientific quality through all the steps of survey implementation.

The data and the survey documentation are open to all interested researchers and represent a unique tool for further quantitative analysis. You can find more information about the Data Initiative/Caucasus Barometer on our website.

The Level of Trust in Government Institutions in Georgia: The Dynamics of the Past Three Years

During the last two decades, Georgia has created new government institutions designed to serve as the tools and safeguards of democracy. But do Georgians believe that these institutions live up to their mission statements? How much do Georgians trust government institutions, and which factors influence the public’s attitudes toward them?

A look at the data from the Data Initiative (DI) over the last three years (2007–2009) shows how the level of trust in government institutions may be related to the political crises and external threats to the country, as well as to the personalities representing these institutions.

For example, the public’s trust in President Saakashvili has experienced a significant increase, especially after the 2008 August war. Combining the “fully trust” and “somewhat trust” categories shows that the percentage of the respondents who trusted the President rose from 32 percent in 2007 to 51 percent in 2008 and remained nearly the same in 2009. Moreover, combining the “somewhat distrust” and “fully distrust” categories reveals that the number of those who distrusted him dropped from 37 percent in 2007 to 18 percent in 2009 (see Figure 1). Such changes could perhaps be linked, firstly, to the events that led to the November 2007 political crisis and, secondly, to the 2008 war and the rise of external threats to the country in the subsequent years. (The DI surveys were conducted in a period of around two weeks, between September and November of the respective years.)

Figure 1: Trust in the President.

Second, the level of trust in the Ombudsman was the highest when this institution was headed by a very popular personality, Sozar Subari (see, for example, Bahrampour, “Georgia’s Counterweight to Power,” Washington Post, July 24, 2009). The level of trust in the Ombudsman rose from 36 percent in 2007 to 58 percent in 2008, while the percentage of those who distrusted this institution fell to seven percent.

When Subari was replaced in September 2009, however, the public’s trust in the Ombudsman’s institution took a reverse turn, dropping by almost a third. While the level of distrust in this institution remained the same, the number of the respondents who trusted the Ombudsman dropped from 58 percent to 40 percent (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Trust in the Ombudsman.

Unlike the President and the Ombudsman, the levels of trust in the Parliament and the executive government (the Prime Minister and ministers) were lower, perhaps attributable to the lower degree to which most MPs and cabinet members are perceived to be politically independent figures. The level of trust in the Parliament, for example, rose significantly from 19 percent in 2007 to 34 percent in 2008 and remained the same in 2009. Meanwhile, the number of the respondents who distrusted the Parliament dropped from 44 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2009 (see Figure 3). The figures in each category of trust in the executive government were nearly the same as that of the Parliament.

Figure: 3: Trust in the Parliament.

Overall, these snapshots show that the public’s trust in government institutions was the lowest in 2007, which coincides with an acute political crisis in Georgia. However, after the 2008 war, the levels of trust grew and, with the exception of the Ombudsman’s institution, remained relatively high compared with the previous years.

You can access the DI dataset here to analyze the public’s trust in other institutions and make comparisons with Armenia and Azerbaijan.

South Ossetia: Enhancing the Public Debate

On 15 April, in front of a packed house at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Tbilisi, Ron Asmus led a public debate on his new book, A Little War that Shook the World. The evening featured the kind of discussion one would expect: the strategic interests of Russia, the US and Europe, Georgia’s path to democracy and the international mechanisms and organizations that failed to prevent the 2008 August war in South Ossetia.

I will not go into the actual details of the debate, since there was nothing people interested in the Caucasus have not heard before. Instead, I want to use it as an opportunity to illustrate how seemingly smaller-scale research can enhance public debate. Some of the CRRC’s recent projects on the August war and its aftermath, for example, might help to go beyond the usual geostrategic–political rhetoric bandied about.

On 9-10 April 2010 the CRRC, in collaboration with Saferworld, held five focus groups with participants from villages near the administrative boundary line (ABL) with South Ossetia. Focus groups (FG) are a research tool that can help to shed light on the public’s opinions on specific topics. They complement other tools like surveys, where issues and opinions are quantified, by providing insight into how those opinions come into being and the reasons people adopt them.

In the discussions that evolved around questions about community safety and citizens’ understandings of conflict, it quickly became apparent that those who are most affected by the war have a genuine interest in solving the underlying conflict. Many of the FG participants pointed out that mixed Georgian–Ossetian ties go back centuries, and their lives were drastically altered when the ABL between Georgia and South Ossetia was closed. No longer are people allowed to travel freely to see friends or family or to engage in cross-border trade. According to the participants, these severe changes increase the economic and psychological trauma brought about by the war.

It is these everyday concerns of the people most affected that the CRRC wants to reveal to the public. Debates on geostrategic issues, such as the one held by Asmus last week, are important for understanding how the war broke out. However, they generate few concrete recommendations for resolving the problems already existent in the war’s aftermath – problems which are acute for the communities in the areas surrounding South Ossetia.

By giving a voice to the people in the area, the CRRC and Saferworld hope to help refocus public discourse on the most important issue when it comes to geostrategy: making the lives of people safe and peaceful.

The report is not quite public yet, but to be notified when it becomes available, please contact Malte (malte.viefhues@crrccenters.org) or Jesse (jesse.tatum@crrccenters.org).

Abortion rates in the South Caucasus among the highest in the world

Last month we wrote a blog post on gender imbalance in the South Caucasus showing that there is an abnormal high number of boys being born in the region. Several comments were posted on the blog site that brought attention to abortion rates in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, induced abortion was used as a means of fertility control due to the lack of effective contraception methods. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization, the number of induced abortions worldwide started decreasing in the mid 1990s and the most dramatic decline occurred in Eastern Europe. In the South Caucasus, however, abortion rates remain high.

Data show that the South Caucasus countries have among the highest abortion rates in the world. The official number of induced abortions is not extremely high but this statistics should also not be considered completely reliable due to underreporting. According to UN data from 2004-2005 there are nine abortions per 1 000 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) in Azerbaijan, 13.9 Armenia and 19.1 in Georgia. This can be compared to for example 1.3 in Austria and 5.7 in Croatia. The most alarming numbers can be found in Russia though with more than 50 abortions per 1 000 women of reproductive age. Nevertheless, data from other sources present higher abortion rates for the South Caucasus. The Reproductive Health Surveys from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Demographic Health Survey in Armenia (both from 2005) look at total abortion rates, which is the expected average number of abortion a woman will have during her reproductive years. The total abortion rate is 1.8 abortions per woman in Armenia, 3.2 in Azerbaijan and 3.7 in Georgia. Thereby the abortion rates in Georgia are the highest in the former Soviet Union and are estimated to be among the highest in the world.

It is being argued that the reason for the high abortion rates in the South Caucasus is the lack of modern contraception. The prevalence of modern contraception methods (the percentage of women of reproductive age, married or in union, currently using contraception) was, according to UN statistics, 13 percent in Azerbaijan in 2006, which is among the lowest of the former Soviet Union countries and below most other countries in the world. As a point of comparison, the prevalence in the U.S. was 68 percent in 2002.

High abortion rates have consequences both for the individual woman and for the society as a whole. Abortions bring health risks, especially in countries such as Georgia where the government’s spending on health care is low and most people do not have access to adequate health care. Some abortions take place outside of medical facilities, leading to complications and in some cases even deaths. Even in cases of legal abortions there is a risk of post-abortion medical problems when the quality of medical service is low. According to a survey carried out by the Open Society Institute’s Network Public Health Programs, half of all Georgian women consider abortion a health risk. Moreover, according to data from the UN, the fertility rates in the South Caucasus are among the lowest in the world. In Azerbaijan, the fertility rate is 1.82, in Georgia 1.41 and in Armenia 1.39 (the world average is 2.55). It means for example that the Georgian population is expected to decrease from 4.2 million in 2010 to 3.3 million in 2050. You can read more about the implications of low fertility rates on the UN Population Division website.

To return to the previous blog post on gender imbalance, the societies’ preference for boys is nothing new but the practice of selective induced abortion has put this preference into practice. The distorted sex ratios in the South Caucasus question the explanation that high abortion rates are a matter of lack of access to contraception methods. We have found little up-to-date information on this and would be grateful if anyone can post links with references to relevant research on abortion in the South Caucasus.

Research on Education of IDP Children in Georgia

On 29 March the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) held a presentation in Tbilisi of the research report “Not Displaced, Out-of-Place – Education of IDP children in Georgia”. The research project examines the academic performance of children in so-called Abkhaz public IDP schools in comparison with children in local schools. The research was conducted in the 13 remaining Abkhaz public schools for IDPs that were established in the early 1990s, in the newly established Tserovani School for children displaced from South Ossetia, and in local schools.

The main finding from the research shows that IDP children are disadvantaged in the education system. It has, however, more to do with their economic situation than their IDP status. Pupils from Abkhaz public schools do relatively well in some science subjects, but worse in others. A consequence is that the amount of pupils from Abkhaz public schools that enter higher education is lower than the amount of pupils from local schools.

For different reasons it has long been the case that many pupils use private tutors to be better prepared for the national entry exams (NEE). Private tutors are considered the primary factor that determines success in the NEEs. As IDP families are generally poorer than non-IDP families, they are less able to afford private tutors, leaving the pupils less well-prepared for the NEE. Moreover, research shows that performance is strongly related to conditions in the schools and at home. For many pupils in Abkhaz public school, neither the schools nor the homes provide an environment conducive to studying. The report shows that Abkhaz public schools are in worse state than local schools, and in some cases even dangerous.

As a positive finding, the research shows that IDPs are discriminated against to a lesser extent today than a couple of years ago. It differs between the regions, though: the situation is best in Tbilisi, whilst in other places discrimination against IDP children is significant. As a result, parents move their children from local schools to Abkhaz public schools. It raises the questions whether Abkhaz public schools should be closed down in order to avoid a segregated system, or if they should remain as a way of ensuring that IDP children get to go to school in an environment free of discrimination.

The audience agreed that the most preferable solution is to improve the standard in the Abkhaz public schools, thus also attracting non-IDPs. As a summarizing remark, the audience also called for the Georgian government to step up and spend more money on education. According to statistics from UNESCO, Georgia is one of the former Soviet countries that spends smallest part of the budget on education. In 2007 Georgia spent 2.7 percent of the GDP on education, in comparison to for example 6.6 percent in Kyrgyzstan and 5.3 percent in Ukraine.

Read more about education of IDP children on NRC Georgia's website. You will also find several articles on education in Georgia here on the blog site.