Abstract
This chapter provides a comparative analysis of fertility and family transformations and policy responses in Austria and the Czech Republic, two neighboring countries in Central Europe that were until 1989 separated by the “Iron Curtain” dividing the two competing political blocs in Europe. The comparison is stimulated by the geographic proximity and shared history and culture of these two countries in the past and their gradual economic and social convergence in the most recent quarter century. During this recent period, both societies became surprisingly similar in their fertility and family patterns and main family policy trends. Fertility in both countries is relatively low, but not extremely low when compared with the countries of Southern Europe or East Asia. The period total fertility rate recently converged to 1.5 births per woman, and cohort fertility rates for the women born in the mid-1970s are projected at 1.65 (Austria) and 1.8 (Czech Republic) births per woman. Austrian fertility rates have been remarkably stable since the 1980s, while in the Czech Republic fertility imploded during the 1990s, following the political regime change, and then partly recovered in the 2000s. In both countries, childbearing has rapidly shifted to later ages and increasingly has taken place outside marriage, with more than one-half of first births now born to cohabiting couples and single mothers. Czech women are much less likely to remain childless, possibly due to the persistently strong normative support to parenthood in the country. Family policies, relatively generous in terms of government expenditures, were until recently dominated by a view that mothers should stay at home for an extended period with their children, making the return to employment difficult for women. The combination of extensive parental leave, negative attitudes toward working mothers with children below age three, limited availability of public childcare for these children, and in the Czech Republic, limited availability of part-time employment affects childbearing decisions, especially among highly educated women. Recent policy adjustments have made parental leave more flexible in both countries and, in the case of Austria, have supported a gradual expansion of public childcare and a stronger involvement of men in childrearing.
Research presented in this paper was partly supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC Grant agreement n° 284238 (EURREP). An earlier, expanded version of this paper has been published as Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) Working Paper 2/2015 and can be accessed at http://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/download/WP2015_02.pdf. Throughout this chapter, the author refers to this working paper (Sobotka 2015) for additional details.
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Notes
- 1.
Own estimate based on the gross fertility rate published by the League of Nations (1943).
- 2.
Women’s employment during the state-socialist period was strongly encouraged for two reasons—economic, in order to cope with the shortage of labor in an inefficient state-directed economy and ideological, whereby everyone had a duty to contribute to society by his or her work. The “right and duty to work” was explicitly stated in the constitutions of 1948 and 1960. In addition, “avoidance of work” and “parasitism” (i.e., living without working or making a living from illegal activities) were punishable by law (Havelková 2009). In practice, this law was not always strictly enforced, and some women could stay at home after completing their maternity leave. However, women’s employment was also considered a financial necessity for most families.
- 3.
This sum almost equals the average annual net income of a childless employed person in 2012, which amounted to CZK 233,602 (US$9083) (OECD 2015a).
- 4.
Press release and additional information available at http://www.bmfj.gv.at/ministerin/Aktuelles/Themen/Familienfreundlichkeitsmonitor.html.
- 5.
Despite the ongoing expansion of university education, Austrian data show that having children while studying remains rare. In 2002–2012, around 1400 children were born annually to mothers who were students, which is less than 2 % of all births.
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Sobotka, T. (2016). The European Middle Way? Low Fertility, Family Change, and Gradual Policy Adjustments in Austria and the Czech Republic. In: Rindfuss, R., Choe, M. (eds) Low Fertility, Institutions, and their Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32997-0_6
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