Mixed marriages with foreigners in Slovakia

Abstract

The subject of the presented study is mixed marriages with foreigners in Slovakia created mainly in the last decade. Marital preferences are studied in terms of citizenship as well as from the perspective of gender. Our objective is to answer the question whether it is possible to find certain patterns of behaviour in partner selection. Our primary sources of information are data from the Statistical Office of the Ministry of Interior. The results show that Slovakia has a relatively strong marriage endogamy as far as the citizenship of the partners is concerned. The findings also reflect the isolation of country, poor contact with foreigners and the low number of foreigners in Slovakia nowadays. Behaviour in marriage is apparently dependent on the moderate prevalence of the number of Slovak women over men, who leave the country, as well as on the composition of immigrants in Slovakia, where, on the contrary, men outnumber women. Slovak women and men tend to choose their partners, mainly from countries, which are close – geographically, linguistically, religiously, culturally (the Czech Republic and other neighbouring countries, EU countries). Women marry foreigners more often than men. Women are more likely than men to marry husbands from geographically and culturally different environment.

Keywords

• citizenship
• choice of partner
• endogamy
• marriage with foreigner
• migration
• statistical data