The Czech Family
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| Year of publication | 2004 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The chapter deals with changes that the Czech family and its reproductive strategies underwent in the last decades. Following the de facto collapse of the paternalism of the old communist regime in the 1960s and its total discrediting caused by the invasion of the armies of the Warsaw Pact during the period of normalization (1970-1990) the Czech families retreated into privacy and relied on social capital that became the most important currency in the Czech Republic. This was also reflected in the significant population wave in the 1970s. The change in the economic, social and political systems at the end of the 1980s also signalled further change in family behaviour and in the 1990s a significant decrease in natality occurred in the Czech Republic. The opportunity cost rocketed and young women began postponing the birth of their first child, the age of women at the birth of their first child increases rapidly. A number of postponed births, however, do not materialize, the share of childless women increases and the lifestyle of singles is promoted. More than a quarter of children are born to unmarried women, in the lower social strata more than a half. Children further in the line are also often born out of wedlock currently almost one fifth of children born out of wedlock are the mothers further child. Natality is strongly educationally stratified more educated women have fewer children. The divorce rate also increases constantly as well as the share of non-nuclear families. Within nuclear families the number of families with one child increases with the exception of the Roma minority who continues to exceed the rate of reproduction. |
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