Czech Republic

Future trends can be characterized as a return to the European patterns of family behavior, with some specific determinants related both to the long-term forced paternalistic-socialist trajectories and habits, and to the economic and social consequences of the social transformation.

The decreasing marriage rate and plummeting birth rate are among the processes that were earlier predicted and for which Czech society was not prepared. The population explosion of the 1970s was used as a determining factor for future development, as were prognoses concerning the Czech population and family development (Vecerník 1999). However, in the 1990s other alternatives asserted themselves in the institution of marriage and in the family. The individual, improvised search for alternatives to former, eroded models of marriage A grandfather takes his granddaughters on an excursion in Prague. In a country that has gone through difficult political and economic conditions and changes, family is respected as an institution that helps people cope. WOLFGANG KAEHLER/CORBIS and the family gave rise to experimentation. Over one-half of the young population now try unmarried cohabitation prior to entering into a marriage, and this has become the most widespread and the most preferred variant of partnership life among young people. However, only 10 percent of those in this particular group consider this type of partnership a part of their long-term life strategy (Rychtaríková 2001). However, the life strategies of many young people, which have changed the demographic structure of Czech society, are founded on more complicated motives than political change or economic difficulties. Twenty-first century Czech society is moving towards models of marriage and family characteristic of advanced democratic European societies, including changes in the interpersonal ties within the family or in the relationship of the family to the state. Analogous situations can be found in a number of Western European societies (though usually occurring there in their early phase in the 1960s and 1970s). Both the observed demographic changes and sociological research indicate that even in the Czech case a "deep change in the cultural factor is occurring, i.e. in the thought of Czech women, men and couples. This involves a shift in the value system towards the pluralizing of values (tolerating divorce, abortion and homosexuality), a search for individual lifestyles and personal identity." (Rychtaríková, Pikálková, and Hamplová 2001). For the Czech Republic, this trend represents a historically new model, but one that is becoming deeply rooted in society. Theoretically, the process is defined as the second demographic transition (Rychtaríková 2001). In the case of the Czech Republic it is assumed that this is a delayed process, characterized by specific cultural features. The trends shaping family behavior in the Czech Republic in early twenty-first century are:

• A tendency to copy the trends of Western Europe—putting off marriage until later, having children at a later age, a high divorce rate;
• The above-mentioned trend exists alongside a strong preference for legal marriages if there are children, and a strong emphasis on the institution of the traditional family; and
• Important roles played by the high employment rate among women, the lack of apartments, and the weak purchasing power of Czech currency.