THE RELATION BETWEEN SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELEOPMENT AND AGE AT MARRIAGE

Abstract

In this study, we take in consideration age at marriage and age difference between males and females. Age differences in Albanian population, Greek minorities and cultural communities of Aromanian, unlike Roma community, are the highest in Europe. This difference is partially explained by the fact that these populations has faced the same harsh conditions of natural and social nature. Due to high rate of migration, cultural communication and economic development in the last decades in Albanian population brought, as it has been observed, a lower age difference. On the other hand, age at marriage is the lowest in Europe and it is an important feature of economic growth. Specifically, coefficient of rank correlations between economic development and age at marriage is 0.97 and 0.90. From this point, we hypothesise that populations living in harsh condition tend to value most, marriages which emphasize economic welfare and having children. On the other side, human population which has a stable welfare, tend to have marriages that provides emotional and sexual pleasure.