Czech Republic

Family status. In the Czech Republic the family is considered in both the private and the public sphere as an irreplaceable structure ascribed with the highest values and significance. Biological reproduction—having children and raising them— and the related participation in the demographic renewal of society, is still viewed as the basic function of the family. In early twenty-first century Czech society, however, the majority of the population views the family as one of the basic institutions of social stability and one closely linked to other institutions in society. The laws governing the processes involved in starting and maintaining a family stem from the civil code of the year 1811, amended over the course of the twentieth century with new family laws.

Demographic features. In a country with a population of 10.2 million people (as of the year 2000), there are over 2.5 million families representing a broad range of types of family cohabitation in which a number of factors play a role: age, family composition, the number of family members, the preference of a certain type of household, location, income and property, religion, and lifestyle attitudes. The actual way in which families are formed and experienced is affected by living conditions and by cultural and social norms. The demographic structure of the family is influenced by the fact that on average 8 percent of married couples remain childless, and that the number of children born to and living in incomplete families is increasing (Ma&NA;íková 2000). Alongside the traditional forms of families—the nuclear and the incomplete family, and the deeply rooted model of the two-child family—deep and extensive changes—both societal and resulting from the transformation since the fall of the communist regime—have generated new forms of family structure and cohabitation, especially the form of "premarital unmarried cohabitation on a trial basis" (Maríková 2000, p. 34, and Rychtaríková 2001, pp. 46–52). The number of children born outside marriage during the past decade has increased by almost 22 percent (Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic 2001). Women lead 70 percent of all forms of incomplete families in the Czech Republic (Vecerník and MatEju 1999). Divorce, which was legalized after World War I, increased sharply in frequency particularly during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, and has made a significant contribution to the increase in the number of incomplete families. The erosion of the nuclear family was however also sustained by secondary processes, which became evident only after the divorce ceiling had been reached (on average 32,000 cases a year during the past fifteen years [Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic 2001]). These processes led to an increase in the number of individuals who had been affected by divorce as children and were unprepared for the responsibilities of family life and maintaining strong family ties. In the 1990s significant demographic/social changes occurred in the structure and dynamics of family, marriage, and reproductive behavior among the Czech population, which can be characterized as new trends and indicate a qualitative social change. In particular, the following changes are worth nothing:

• The average age of men and women entering into marriage increased rapidly (the male average grew in the years 1989–1997 from 24.6 to 27.7 and the female average from 21.8 to 25.4).
• The marriage rate declined (5.4 per 1,000 inhabitants, roughly half the figure for the 1970s).
• The birth rate declined (the aggregate birth rate of 1.14 in the year 2000 is among the lowest in Europe, and the Czech Republic has now recorded the lowest number of children born since the year 1918).
• The average age of parents increased (in the years 1990–1997 from 24.8 to 26.4), including first-time parents (from 22.5 to 24.0).
• There has been a significant decline in the number of families having a second child, and a shift from the originally dominant two-child model of the Czech family towards single-child families.
• There has been a significant decline in the abortion rate (in the years 1991–1998 the number of abortions decreased from 103,000 to 41,000).

Political and social influences. Secularization has influenced at least 70 percent of the Czech population. Of the remaining 30 percent of the population with a religious orientation, there are many that are not actively practicing (Scítání 2002). Secularization is accompanied by a more liberal view of premarital sex, a broad acceptance of abortion, and a weakening of attitudes that contribute to the maintenance of tradition and the rituals associated with family life. This reality has come to be reflected in everyday language. Some terms formerly used to refer to family relatives have almost been forgotten, such as godmother, godfather, and god-child. Although in the Czech population traditional and liberal views on family issues continue to coexist, over the course of the socialist period (1948–1989) some inner control mechanisms that regulate the area of family ties were weakened or fell apart. Relationships between neighbors disintegrated owing to the consequences of migration processes necessitated by socialist industrialization. Attempts to solve housing issues through the construction of massive, anonymous panel housing estates led to the accelerated atomization of the nuclear family. State and political interference during the socialist period and the paternalistic social policy prior to 1989 led to the long-term deformation of the essence of family structures and values. From the perspective of the Czech family since the 1970s the key areas of interference were: (1) the unprecedented intervention of social engineering in population policy; (2) the deformed ties stemming from the redistribution of income and the state assumption of some responsibilities of the family and the individual; and (3) the current failure of the state in these areas. In terms of culture and norms, however, Czech society overcame the impact of the two worst totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century—the Nazis (1938–1945) and the Bolshevics (1948–1988).

Economic and social conditions of the Czech family. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the Czech family faces the growing influence of increasing social and economic inequalities in family living standards. The impact of the economic transformation in the post-socialist era most affects young families with a larger number of children, incomplete families with children not provided for, families with a single income, or those entirely dependent on social support from the state.

The family and women. Significant questions regarding the function and profile of the contemporary Czech family concern (1) the position of women in the family; (2) the position of the man/father; (3) the division of labor in the family; and (4) the influence of social stereotypes on the division of male and female roles. Women make up 44 percent of the workforce in the Czech Republic, and the application of strategies founded on the models of part-time employment or housewives are marginal phenomena (Maríková 2000). The educational structure of the female population is comparable with the male population in terms of achieving higher levels of education. In the early years of the twenty-first century, however, women had not achieved the same opportunities in the labor market as men, and their average income was roughly a third lower than that of men. Even so, it is the woman's income that determines the living standard of a family, as Czech families have long depended on two incomes. In everyday family and household labor, a residue of the patriarchal-traditional division of labor between the sexes persists, and woman/mother continues to bear the heavy burden, including the second shift. This pattern is less obvious in partnership relations, decision making in the family, and control over the family budget, where particularly among the younger generation an egalitarian model has asserted itself (Cermáková 2000).

Other family patterns. Other distinct family patterns and behavior can be seen, particularly in the ethno-culturally distinct Roma population living in the Czech Republic, which has long demonstrated different behavior in relation to marriage and the family (e.g., a high birth rate, low divorce rate, or the set position of Roma women in the patriarchal family). After the division of Czechoslovakia in 1992, the issue of mixed marriages and families comprised of Czechs and Slovaks became more important, although the phenomenon itself was common and characterized by similar patterns and behavior.