Transition to the new partnership formation pattern in Lithuania, Russia and France: different paths to convergence?
ENThe aim of the chapter is to reveal, on the basis of the GGS findings, the similiarities and specifics in changing strategies of family formation in Lithuania, Russia and France, the countries with different cultural and structural path-dependencies, and different historical experiences. An analysis is made of the countries, which were representing, for a long time, the opposite poles of the demographic, cultural, political and historical development. These are the countries which according to the family formation strategy were placed on the opposite sides of the St. Petersbourg-Triest line (Hajnal, 1965), the cultural advance and the matrimonial behaviour of which were influenced, in different ways, by the dominant religious environment and different processes of seculiarization, and the long-decade historical-political-economic advancement of which was making prerequisites for options in the choice of individual life paths and demographic behaviour. All this evidently conditions specific features and trajectories in the changes of family formation for each country. The article is organized into four sections. The first one is dedicated to the analysis of the historical development of the family formation patterns in all three countries and reveals the country specific historical preconditions of the modern family changes. In the second section of the article we analyze the shifts towards the modern partnership formation pattern. Two general tools of analysis are employed in this section: first of all we discus changes in the timing of first partnership by birth cohorts and afterwards by certain age in birth cohorts. The analysis reveals the different models of the transition to the new partnership formation pattern. The closing section of the article raises the question on the forerunners of the new family formation pattern and addresses the issue of selectivity.
