We analyse the socio-economic and cultural factors that influence the timing of the first birth in Kyrgyzstan. As in several other developing countries in Central Asia, no trend towards the postponement of fertility has been observed in Kyrgyzstan. This contrasts not only with the current trend towards later parenthood that has been documented in highly developed countries, but with an incipient trend towards a delay in the timing of the first birth that has been reported in many developing countries. Our study is based on the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey -2014 (MICS2014), with complementary data drawn from the Demography and Health Survey -2012 (DHS2012). Our analysis of the first union and of the first birth in a union for cohorts of women born between 1965 and 1998 showed that the rates of union formation and motherhood have increased among the younger cohorts. We also found that a woman's education, labour market experience, and the gender relations in her family influenced her likelihood of transitioning to a first union and to motherhood. In addition, we uncovered significant differences in the timing of motherhood and union formation between women of different ethnicities, and looked at the factors that may have contributed to these differences. The factors that support a stable age pattern of fertility in Kyrgyzstan are of interest when conducting broader comparative research on fertility timing in developing countries, as these factors may help explain the current diversity in these patterns.

The paper deals with fertility levels in some republics of the North Caucasus (Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia) where, as in other post-Soviet regions, there has been a serious intensification of religiosity and at the same time weakening of the traditional family unit in recent decades. The goal of the paper is to ascertain whether these trends affect fertility, whose decrease is apparently stalling in the North Caucasus over the last decade. One reason to turn to this question is that in some regions of the North Caucasus the fertility level has been considerably higher since the pronatalist state policy was implemented in 2007 than in Russia as a whole. This raises the question as to whether higher fertility in the North Caucasus is mainly related to a higher demand for the state financial support granted to parents following the birth of the second (or a subsequent) child or if it can be rather accounted for by the specific cultural characteristics of that part of Russia. Our field survey held in the two republics of the North Caucasus in 2016 showed that the religiosity of respondents is related to higher fertility regardless of family policy issues. The relation between religiosity and higher fertility is arguably independent from the observance of traditional family norms which imposegender hierarchies. This suggests that an Islamic revival within a given society can support fertility whether or not traditional norms of familyorganization are preserved there. The conclusion for state pronatalist policy is that its outcome may be related to the cultural characteristics of the population among which such measures are implemented, apart from economic parameters that drive the demand among some families for financial support after childbirth.

This paper sheds light on behavior of dictator and his officials in the soviet type totalitarian dictatorships. It is well-known fact that the plan in the soviet economy actually was a result of intrigues and secret negotiations between interested parties. Usually, direct executors were interested in cutting down plans, but in some cases they aimed to increase them.Particularly it concerns the fact of mass repression under dictatorships and overexpenditure of an administrative resource at elections in non-democratic and quasi-democratic countries. We present the simple model of interaction between principal (dictator) and his agents, which explain these paradoxical facts.