Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society 44: 49-57, doi: 10.3897/jbgs.e72840

Marriage rates of the population in Bulgaria: features and trends of change

Toni Traykov^‡, Kaloyan Tsvetkov^‡

‡ Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Sofia, Bulgaria

Corresponding author: Toni Traykov ( totraykov@abv.bg )

Corresponding author: Kaloyan Tsvetkov ( tsvetkov.kaloian@gmail.com )

Academic editor: Boris Kazakov

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Traykov T, Tsvetkov K (2021) Marriage rates of the population in Bulgaria: features and trends of change. Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society 44: 49-57. https://doi.org/10.3897/jbgs.e72840

Abstract

The paper studies the past and contemporary marriage rates in Bulgaria. The analysis starts with the marriage patterns after the Liberation, when high marriage rates were observed, especially after the war periods. During socialism, the family was perceived as the main functioning cell of society and the marriage rates continued to be relatively high. In the 1990s and the beginning of the new century, a change in the marital behavior was observed – a significant postponement of entry into marriage and motherhood led to a family model that had not been common in the past. The authors also conclude that there are different stages in the marriage patterns in Bulgaria – both historically and spatially. The different factors affecting these processes are also studied and discussed in the paper.

Keywords

historical analysis, marital structure, reproductive attitudes, reproductive behavior