Couple disagreement about fertility preferences and family-friendly policy measures in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article describes some findings of an ad-hoc survey "Marriage, Work and Family" conducted in the Czech Republic in 2005. The analysis is focused on couple disagreement about childbearing attitudes, ideals and intentions as well as on the partners' negotiation process in reproductive decision-making. The results indicate that around one-fifth of Czech couples disagree about the intended number of children. The relatively high share of concordance between partners is the final outcome of a negotiation process within the couple in most cases. The more general the childbearing preferences measures, the higher the level of couple disagreement: one-third of the couples disagree about the family size ideals and two-thirds of them disagree about the reasons for having children. Moreover, one-fourth of Czech partners disagree about the impact of different policy measures on their own reproductive behaviour. This suggests that the potential for a couple's conflict is quite high and that policy-makers willing to implement effective family-friendly policy measures should target their intervention not only to women but to men as well.