What Changing Family Life Tells Us about Europeans?

Pavlína Habartová, Charles University in Prague
Klara Hulikova Tesarkova, Charles University in Prague
Olga Kurtinova, Charles University in Prague

The low fertility level in developed countries has been in spotlight of demographers for decades. However, full understanding of this phenomenon has been still far away. This paper aims to assist clarification of the issue of low fertility focusing on changes in family structure and family life in selected European countries in recent years. Data of the European Social Surveys for 21 selected European countries which attend both rounds 2004 and 2010 are analysed and the predominantly questions to family work and well-being are employed. Preliminary results show that variation among countries according to fertility is significant, although the variability of behind standing factors is even more important. Nowadays, fertility differences in Europe do not fit necessarily to commonly used classification of western European countries and post-communist countries anymore.