Russians rushed to file for divorces: how to officially become poorer

According to Rosstat data published recently, the number of dissolutions of family unions in the country has been growing for the third year in a row. Most often, Russians get divorced because of poverty (33%), because they do not understand each other (15%), because of jealousy and infidelity (14%).

But 2023 broke all previous records. If in 2020 564,033 couples divorced, then in 2021 the number is already 644,207. In the past 2022, 683,111; in the first six months of 2023 alone, 333,970 marriages were already divorced.

Of course, you can blame everything on the pandemic, when spouses were forced to communicate with each other 24/7 due to remote work. And the fact that due to the general increase in alienation in society, even the closest people cease to understand each other.

But there is another reason that few people will talk about, although everyone knows about it, but experts have started talking about it out loud. Residents in the provinces rushed to file for divorce in order to become… poorer.

The fact is that from January 1, 2023, the Unified Allowance for Children and Pregnant Women is in effect. It replaced and accumulated all previous payments. But not everyone can receive it, but only a very low-income family with an average per capita income below 1 regional subsistence minimum. The payment is determined using a comprehensive assessment of need. Families expecting a child and with children under 17 years of age have the right to it.

The amount of the single benefit is 50, 75 or 100% of the regional minimum wage for each minor family member.

“The existing method of determining the average per capita income consists of taking all the income of all family members and dividing by the number of people in the family,” explains Jamilya Adzhieva, a specialist in the field of family law.

It is clear that there are families where the income is slightly, even by a couple of thousand, but exceeds the required norm. And what? This is unfair!

But our people, as they say, are cunning in their inventions.

There are families where mom and dad live together, mom takes care of the children, dad works, and the couple themselves barely make ends meet, but from the point of view of the state it fits into the norm.

Minus dad’s salary in case of divorce – and now this Rubicon has not been crossed. At the same time, the woman will not officially collect alimony from her fictitious ex-husband; this is a voluntary matter, so as not to increase her family budget.

“They began to urgently transfer property to grandparents. The statistics of single-parent families has rocketed into space. They come and consult: we have a plot, we have land, we don’t pass the allowance, what to do with it. The average salary in our region, for example, is about 30 thousand, and an additional 12 thousand rubles will not hurt anyone. They get divorced because it brings in extra money,” says Olga Dmitrieva, a lawyer from Kursk.

Not only do they get divorced, they also don’t get married. Marriages are not officially registered, since single mothers are also not at a loss. In recent years, the North Caucasus has been different in this regard. No, no one has canceled strict Muslim customs – that’s why wedding rites, nikkah, are performed for newlyweds, but for the state, from a legal point of view, all these rituals mean nothing. No family. Children born in it are fatherless. They also get free meals at school. In some villages, entire streets consist of such divorced people, where husband and wife live together, but at the same time are legally nobody to each other.

A paradoxical situation emerges: with good intentions, officials drive people into the psychology of poverty, where any bonds and traditions block the possibility of getting money. Everything is exactly according to Marx: being determines consciousness.

“In gypsy families in our region, girls are often married off at the age of 12-15, also unofficially, she herself is still a minor child, and her mother receives an allowance for her (and at the same time for several other children) and at the same time this child herself receives an allowance already for your child or children. The girl did not undergo emancipation, which means her mother has every right to this money, there are women who earn 50-60 thousand a month,” explains Dmitrieva.

The psychology of the person himself is also changing. They don’t give him a fishing rod and don’t teach him how to fish, they give him this fish (and not the best quality) and force him to open his mouth infantilely.

“It is not profitable for people to be rich, they tend to become poor, and a poor person who lives in anticipation of being helped is sometimes not able to make his own decisions, he will continue to wait for handouts from the state, and his thoughts will be focused only on how to get them,” says psychologist Elena Mikhailova.

This creates a chain of poverty. And in fact, it is very bad: to be a dependent of the state. Because in return it demands to live the way it wants. And it does not perceive a citizen as someone who can live independently, independently and put these qualities into practice. Naughty children who are in custody, whose wishes can not be perceived in any way, and in case of disobedience, pat on the soft spot and continue to stick to their line.