Demographic shifts in the Czech Republic after 1989:: A second demographic transition view

A dramatic change in fertility, family formation and living arrangements took place in the Czech Republic over the 1990s. The establishment of democracy, profound social transformation and transition to the market economy affected the values and demographic behaviour of the young Czech generation. This paper examines whether these demographic shifts can be interpreted within the framework of the second demographic transition. The theoretical part discusses the idea of the transition, outlining three distinctive conceptualisations. Two of them-the view of the transition as a progression of characteristic interrelated demographic changes and a broader view stressing the importance of underlying ideational factors-fit the Czech situation very well. A comparison with the Netherlands reveals that the onset of the transition in the Czech Republic may be clearly located in the first half of the 1990s, lagging two decades behind the Netherlands.