O. Shurgaia. - Economic Transformation: Standard of Living and Demographic Cataclysms in Georgia.. - Tbilisi Students' Attitudes to Ethnic Minorities. Collection of Works I. (Institute of Demography and Sociology, Academy of Science of Georgia). - Tbilisi: Mecniereba - 2001
Events that took place in Georgia as a result of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and abrupt disintegration of the administrative-commanding economic system inconsistent passing of the economic reforms not taking in to consideration national peculiarities and the state of affairs in the country, especially the unprecedented scale of curruption at the very first stage of the post - socialist transformation struck a crushing blow to economic and social systems of the country throwing Georgian economy back for tens of years. This resulted an appearance such dangerous processes, as: deindustrialization of the country and strategic dependence on the empire, formation of colonial-raw material structure of economy, social structure antagonization, growth of social tension, Lumpanization of population, rising the number of unfortunate people, intensive depopulation etc.
More over, there was a heavy delay of the process of transformation - of the transition period that in many post - Soviet countries ended in several years, but in Georgia it has not finished up to now. It was the beginning of harsh uncontrolled property differentiation of the society which prompted appearance of new confronting social groups: the extremely rich and the extremely poor, proprietors and hired workers, independent businessman managers, unemployed, socially unprotected strata of society and completely declassed individuals, already at the beginning of the year 1996, 20 % of the poorest population had only 1 % of the cumulating income, but 20% of the rich owners of 65.5 %. During the same period 1/3 of the whole national wealth was accumulates in the hands of only 1 % of the population and 25-30 % became the owners of accumulated domestic property.
Consequently, living conditions and welfare of great majority of the population worsened, which was also proved by the results of sociological investigation carried out by scientific workers of the Institute of Demography and Sociological research of Georgian Academy of Sciences and inquiries made in June 15-30 2003, a year before The November Revolution - "On Socio demographic consequences of poverty in Georgia and basic directions to overcome there difficulties". During the inquiry 75.9 % of the respondents declared that the government doesn't carry out necessary measures to improve the economic conditions of people, which first of all proves that only 18 % of the respondents expressed positive attitude towards the Georgian government who is trying to lay the foundation of the new economic system. At the same time 46.2 % answered negatively, and 36.5 % didn't have any definite opinion.
Overcoming corruption and other acute Socioeconomic problems, improvement of welfare of the nation, and, accordingly normalization of demographic situation in the country is mostly depended on giving priority to small business to maximum activization of the potential resources, wide speeded up and planned development of small enterprises Practically, everywhere, be it a town, district or region of Georgia, there are great and unique possibilities not only natural but also from the point of view, enterprise traditions and customs.
First of all, the following are meant: first, industrial-technical potential, accumulated in many fields of industry and agriculture, and diversity of natural resources and soil and climate conditions, also highly skilled labour force, and in many regions - presence of excess labour force; second, the possibility of denationalization of enterprises in various fields and creating wide network of small structures on the basis of privatization of various subdivisions of large and medium enterprises, development of so called franchising co-operation, also subcontract relations; third, extensive reserves for development of small business; fourth, absence of necessity for relatively large material and financial resources for development of small production; fifth, presence of major components (standard of education and life expectancy) of human potential development index; sixth, steady mental preconditions of the people, particularly, rich centuries-old experience and traditions of individual management.