The main features of population development in the Czech Republic during the transformation of society

Abstract: The behaviour of the population of the Czech Republic has been chang-ing since 1991. The changes have resulted in a considerable decrease in marriages and births, and a slight fall in mortality rates. The decline in the number of newly-weds and new-born children can be attributed to significant structural changes in so-ciety connected with the transformation of the reproductive model established in the post-war era. The changes have been initiated most notably by the younger genera-tion, within which certain trends diverge. Some young people continue to enter into marriage at an early age, and half of first children were the product of pre-marital conception. Another part of this generation has been postponing both marriage and childbearing, and this portion has been growing rapidly. The present decline in mar-riages appears to be due to two factors: the higher age at which people are marrying for the first time, and falling marriage rates in general (the increasing proportion of never-married persons in the population). Similarly, the decline in births was caused not only by an earlier trend towards lower fertility but also a lower proportion of people living in wedlock. Hence the expectation that in the second half of the 1990