Poll Shows Macedonia Becoming More Socially Conservative

Macedonia is becoming more conservative in its social attitudes, a recent poll suggests, with thumping majorities backing religious education in schools and opposing gay marriage.

The survey, carried out by a Skopje-based think tank, the Centre for Research and Policy Making, CRPM, shows two thirds-of those polled support religious education classes.

Supporters are most numerous among ethnic Albanians, one-quarter of the population, almost 90 per cent of whom back the idea.

Support for the legalisation of same-sex marriages is correspondingly low, with five out of six respondents expressing their disapproval.

Some 60 per cent of respondents, equally male and female, believe women should put their role in the home ahead of their professional careers. 

While the public is split evenly over abortion, wkich is currently legal, youngsters are more conservative than older people on the subject.

"Paradoxically, women and younger people in general are more prone to condemning it [abortion]." Anastas Vangeli, from the CRPM, noted.

Ilija Aceski, a sociology professor at Skopje University, said poverty and a more nationalist atmosphere lie behind the perceived shift towards conservative views revealed in the survey.

"Societies that are poorer generally turn back to conservative views and see 'progressive' ideas as a threat to their world," Aceski told Balkan Insight.

"It is fascinating to see how Macedonian residents have not changed their thinking... and even became more conservative than they were before," Aceski added.
 
Latest data from Macedonia's Statistical Office, published in September, show a record 31.1 per cent of the population living below the official poverty line in 2009, up from 28.7 a year earlier.

Over the past four years of rule by the centre-right nationalists of the VMRO DPMNE party, Macedonia saw an attempt to introduce religion classes into elementary schools. The move was banned by the constitutional court for violating the country's secular constitution. But the government has gone ahead anyway, introducing "religious ethics" classes as a way around the ban.

Meanwhile, the EU has criticised a new anti-discrimination law that the ruling party passed this year as anti-gay. The EU noted that the law fails to mention different sexual orientation as one of the premises for discrimination.

The CRPM poll published on Wednesday was conducted in October via telephone and involved 1,094 people as a representative sample of the population.