Birth and Fertility Rates in the Czech Republic and in Europe and Possible Influences on Them Kateřina IVANOVÁ Institute of Nursing and Health Care Management.

Birth and Fertility Rates in the Czech Republic and in

Europe and Possible Influences on Them

Kateřina IVANOVÁ

Institute of Nursing andHealth Care Management

Reproduction - part 1 2

Basic demographic terms related to human birth

Natality depends mainly on fecundity, the ability of a couple to produce offsprings. Its resulting effect expressed as the number of children born is referrer to as fertility.


Crude birth rate Natality level is indicated by a crude birth

rate defined as the ratio of all births to mean population over a given period of time (expressed per 1,000 population). It is a number of all children born in a calendar year per 1,000 population. It is calculated by dividing the number of children born by total population and multiplying the result by 1,000.


Natality Natality is expressed by the number

of live births in a calendar year per 1,000 population. The most important measure of natality (also important for health care) is the number of live births - for example 92,786 in the year 2002 and 90,715 in 2001, but as many as 132,667 in 1988 or 181,750 in 1973.


Fertility – crude and specific

Live births related only to women of reproductive age are referred to as fertility rates. The crude fertility rate is defined as the number of live born children per 1,000 women of reproductive age. The specific fertility rate is the number of live children born to women of a particular age group per all women of the age group.


Specific fertility rates related to age groups – the number of children born per 1,000 women

of a particular age group


Total fertility rate

The sum of age-related fertility rates expresses the intensity of fertility in a given population.

Most often, this is the sum of fertility rates in a given period of time (usually a year) called total fertility rates. It expresses the number of children potentially born to one woman if the values were unchanged for about 35 years, i.e. in a particular generation.


Replacement level

The total fertility rate is one of the essential demographic indicators used for international comparison.

Its value of 2.1 (the so called replacement level) ensures the reproduction without any changes in population numbers, supposing the mortality is low. If the value drops below the level the population decreases in a long-term perspective.


Total fertility rates in the Czech Republic in 1950-1999


Marriage rate

The number of marriages depends on the size of population able to get married and its distribution according to gender and age. The size and structure of such population depends in turn on the overall demographic development and the level of individual components of demographic reproduction. The marriage rates are also influenced by economic, social and cultural situation of a country including life values of its citizens.


Hajnal line dividing Europe into Western and Eastern European family models


Crude marriage rate

The simplest indicator of marriages is the crude marriage rate – the number of marriages per 1,000 population over a 1-year period. The rate of marriages is increasingly influenced by higher-order marriages, i.e. those involving divorced and/or widowed persons.


Crude marriage rates in the Czech Republic in 1950-1999 – the number of

marriages per 1,000 population


Marriage rate Marriage rate is also expressed by the

proportion of single or married persons divided into age groups in the total population, expressed separately for men and women. Given the fact that only marriages before a certain age are relevant for demographic reproduction, only the following proportions are often used: the proportion of single persons below the age of 50 or the proportion of persons married only once before the age of 50.


Marriage rate - additional information

Additional information is also provided by the age difference between the partners getting married. Besides long-term development, seasonal trends are monitored, i.e. the distribution of marriages in the year showing surprising regularity resulting from the studied population’s traditions.


“Marriage is an old-fashioned institution”

– “yes” answers in the Czech Republic in 1991 and 1999


Abortion rate Studying abortion rates is a continuation of

demographic reproduction analyses, as abortion rates are closely related to mortality rates as well as birth rates and still birth rates.

By abortion rates we mean fetus mortality, i.e. termination of pregnancy by removing or expelling the fetus during the period of time between conception and the moment when the developing fetus is considered a baby, according to valid definitions.


Definition of spontaneous abortions

A spontaneous abortion is termination of pregnancy when:

a. The fetus shows no signs of life and its birth weight is below 1,000 g and if it cannot be determined if the pregnancy is shorter than 28 weeks.

b. The fetus shows at least one sign of life and its birth weight is below 500 g but it dies within 24 hours after delivery.

c. A fetal egg with no fetus or endometrium is removed from the uterus.


Other ways of terminating pregnancy

An abortion is also termination of ectopic (extrauterine) pregnancy or induced (artificial) abortion subject to special regulations.

When multifetal pregnancy is terminated all fetuses are registered separately.

Internationally, Czech statistics are considered precise and well kept.


Issues concerning registration of induced abortions

The rates of induced abortions are closely related to birth control methods, promotion and spread of contraception and legislation valid in a particular country.

For example, foreign statistics often do not list mini-abortions and these are registered together with regulated periods.

Czech statistics differentiate between mini-abortions, other legal induced abortions, spontaneous abortions and other abortions.


Basic indicators of abortion rates

The simplest indicator is the crude abortion rate defined as the number of all abortions per 1,000 population. This indicator is used just for orientation purposes.

The general abortion rate equals total abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age.


Abortion index Abortion index and age-specific abortion index can be

constituted for all abortions together or for individual types of abortions (spontaneous, mini-abortions)

When studying spontaneous abortions it is necessary to consider the important relation between the length of pregnancy and spontaneous abortion rate. However, relevant data for the first weeks of pregnancy are missing.

The process of a spontaneous abortion is subject to specialized medical research and is also related to environmental quality and lifestyle.


Abortions as a socio-political problem

For the research of planned parenthood it is essential to monitor abortion rates in relation to the number of already born children. Health care statistics also provide information about abortion rates adjusted to the marital status and women’s education.

The issues of abortions and relevant legislature are beyond demographics and often become a social and political problem. Social and psychosocial factors influencing abortion rates are dealt with in sociology.


Natural reproduction

If migrations are not taken into account when population trends are studied we use the term closed population. In such a population an increase is referred to as natural reproduction.

The simplest indicator of natural reproduction is the natural increase or natural decrease. The natural increase in an absolute value, a difference between the number of live births and deaths over a period of time.


Net reproduction rate

Another indicator of natural reproduction is the net reproduction rate stating the average number of girls born to one women during her childbearing period providing the level of specific birth rates stays unchanged and she will live to the age of her mother at the time of the birth.

If the net reproduction rate equals to 1.0, the simple replacement of the population is ensured, if it is higher than 1.0 the population increases and vice versa. This index is suitable for international comparison, however, it is available only for developed countries.


Family as the basis of population behaviour

The current trends in family development are similar in the Czech Republic, Europe and the USA. European families are undergoing especially changes related especially to the following issues: Equal opportunities for women, divorces, incomplete families, extramarital children (probably the most serious problem in Western European countries), non-marital motherhood (a problem different from that of extramarital children), family poverty, attitudes to the elderly, care of grandparents, homosexuality, AIDS, youth crime, family policy and the role of minorities in the society.


Three family acts

E. Sullerot in her book La crise de la famille (The Crisis of the Family) described three acts that will “shake European families and bring them together”.

Act One – between the end of WW II and sometime around 1964 - “marriage boom“ and increasingly lower age of the partners.

Act Two – approximately until 1984 - birth and marriage rates decline rapidly, the number of divorces increases and those in favour of cohabitation are firmly optimistic - in most countries the number of children born outside marriages rises.


New family order

Act Three is characterized by a new family order, a situation first apparent from socio-demographic data in Sweden, the first country to notice Act One as well. The decline of young-age marriages comes to a halt, the rate of higher-age marriages rises, the number of divorces decreases and the number of children born is significantly higher. The most important fact is that the new, stable couples now have trust in a family life, characterized by more reserved sexual relations, faithfulness and the partners’ desire to form stable couples.


Happy family future? Another optimistic sign of the present-day and

future families is that they do not scorn the generation continuity. Individualistic tendencies known from the 1960s and 1970s tend to disappear. The important time for the future will come when the individualistic generation becomes the generation of grandparents. Either the atomization of the society will be even more significant or young couples will try to “re-create what they were missing: a structure of everyday coexistence of the two genders and several generations, a structure more authentic than a school, a firm or a socio-cultural network – a family”. (p. 59)


The end Thank you for

your attention!!!!

Birth and Fertility Rates in the Czech Republic and in Europe and Possible Influences on Them Kateřina IVANOVÁ Institute of Nursing and Health Care Management.

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