Transformation of childbearing patterns from the cohort perspective: comparison between Czech and Slovak populations
Abstract
Since the introduction of a new labour market model in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after 1989, fertility and family behaviour have undergone profound change. Family formation was postponed and total fertility rates declined sharply in both countries.
Since the period total fertility rate became increasingly distorted by the timing shift, in the paper we apply the cohort approach to analyse recent fertility transformations. The cohort approach was employed so as to obtain a more detailed insight into cohort fertility dynamics in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Our analysis is based on two methods. We applied 1) a basic benchmark model in order to analyse the postponement of and recuperation in cohort fertility, i.e. to assess what proportion of presumably postponed births was recovered and 2) a parity-cohort method in order to investigate changes in the spacing and quantum of higher-order births.
Besides the analysis of the postponement of the entering into motherhood (i.e. the births of the first child) and its subsequent recuperation we focus on the dynamics of higher order births and its spacing. The combination of the two approaches would serve to better understand the family building and to discuss the potential impacts of the birth spacing on the completed cohort fertility and recuperation process.