Value Change and Demographic Behaviour in the Czech Republic

The deep structural changes witnessed in the Czech Republic in the past decade, that is, the establishment of a democratic political regime and market economy, and the transformation of the social security system, could not have steered clear of the everyday life and behavioural patterns of the Czech population. One of the areas that have been profoundly affected is demographic behaviour. Marriage and fertility rates in particular have decreased to an unprecedented level. The main thesis of this paper is that the demographic changes in the Czech Republic result from a condensed progress of the second demographic transition, which was triggered off by a value change in young age cohorts born in the 1970s and early 1980s. The new value orientations of these cohorts, which were latently present even before the political change, manifested themselves fully in the free environment of the new democratic society. The paper will present evidence of the value changes by utilising data from a comparative sociological research titled the European Values Study which was carried out in Europe in 1990/91 and in 1999. It is argued that the coincidence of value and demographic changes can hardly be regarded as accidental.