On marriage and family trends in the Czech republic in the mid-1990s

The paper discusses latest trends in marriage and family behaviour in the Czech republic. These trends show profound changes as compared with the situation before 1989. It is argued that decrease of marriage rate and fertility rate, and gradual in­crease of the mean age at first marriage and increase of illegitimacy rate are normal char­acteristics of modem democratic societies. Because the trend of development of Czech social and economic structures follows the way of Western societies, and because these structures have brought about particular demographic development described as the sec­ond demographic transition, it is obvious that also the Czech population started to be­have demographically in the same pattern as Western ones did at the end of the 1960. Therefore, the paper claims, the wittnessed changes in Czech marriage and family pat­terns are just another indicator of a normal and even sound development of transforming Czech society.