One way of gaining an insight into fertility change is through an examination of family-size preferences. Although it is well known that data on birth expectations are fraught with technical and interpretative uncertainties (Ryder, 1973; Blake, 1974), the topic is too potentially revealing to be simply dismissed. After all,
36 To be sure, cohabitation has not been as uncommon in Eastern Europe as one might expect. For instance, the 1984 Hungarian microcensus (Carlson and Klinger, 1987) found that in age groups 20-24 to 40-49, between 5.2 and 9.3 per cent of never married women were cohabiting. The corresponding figures among divorced women ranged from 16.6 to 18.8 per cent. In total, however, the propensity in Hungary to cohabit was considerably lower than in most Western European countries. Moreover, Carlson and Klinger note that a substantial proportion of cohabiting persons may have been in fact Romanies (Gypsies), who in Hungary constitute a distinctive subpopulation, typified by a migratory lifestyle and a culture in which 'civic legitimacy has not supplanted kin legitimacy' (Carlson and Klinger, 1987: 98).
most demographers are inclined to believe that stated preferences for a given number of children directly reflect factors that are influential in determining the fertility of individual couples, particularly when efficient methods of birth control are available. Though the intensity of preferences may vary between couples as well as between partners, there are no convincing grounds for the assertion that the question about a preferred number of children is totally alien to people living in developed societies, and that their answers are, therefore, meaningless. Presumably, family-size norms and preferences operate within a complex of other circumstances and preferences. Fertility preferences may be reflections of a number of interrelated factors, ranging from psychologically determined perceptions and desires to voluntary choices made by couples with respect to their economic situations and life goals. Of course, it is not so much the desire for children as the desire to have a certain number of children that matters.
Data for Eastern Europe on the average number of children planned or considered desirable by women come from a variety of surveys. A survey on planned parenthood in Czechoslovakia in 1956 seems to have been the first of its type conducted in Eastern Europe (Krotki, 1977), and was eventually followed by several dozen similar surveys in other countries of the region; the majority, however, were undertaken in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. The discussion below covers surveys about attitudes towards family size, and omits studies limited exclusively to achieved fertility or methods and practices of contraception and abortion. Unfortunately, very little of the potentially relevant material is suitable for analysis. The amount of information reported from surveys varies, and analysis is further constrained by the fact that several survey reports were published only in national languages. In addition, with the limited information at hand, it is uncertain how nationwide a picture of desired family sizes is provided by some surveys.
Most surveys seem to have been aimed exclusively at married respondents, except for four small surveys in Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1967 which targeted women before marriage, and the 1987 East German survey which did not control for marital status. However, it is almost certain that not all of the surveys were based on truly random samples, and consequently some inter country or temporal differences in indicators could reflect sampling defects. There may also have been differences in the wording of the crucial question on attitude to family size. In theory, questions can be about the number of children
'expected1, 'planned', or considered 'ideal';37 or respondents may simply be asked which single family size is the 'best' according to unspecified criteria, in which case it is not clear how much the answer reflects personal preferences and how much perceptions of societal norms. Even subtle differences in definitions of terms or wording of questions obviously have some effect on comparisons, but one can only speculate on their possible influence. All of this prevents presentation of a comparative summary for the whole of Eastern Europe.
Table 4.8 shows the average numbers of children desired by married women of various reproductive ages in several Eastern European countries and years. Naturally, family-size preferences may relate to a preferred family-size range rather than to a single number of children. However, a broader discussion of ideal family size distributions for Eastern Europe is impeded by the scarcity of available data, because for some surveys an average number of children desired is the only information that is available. As can be seen, the number of surveys published in a form that permits at least this comparison varies from zero for Albania to more than ten for Czechoslovakia. By and large, the data given in Table 4.8 indicate ultimate numbers of children which interviewed women found ideal or desirable. The results show that average desired family size oscillated between two and three children per family in all of the relevant surveys. The average number of children considered ideal varied from 2.7 per woman in Yugoslavia in 1970 to 2.0 in Hungary in 1986 (the somewhat lower figures for Czechoslovakia in 1966 and 1973 relate only to urban populations); but for an overwhelming majority of inquiries the variation is roughly between 2.1 and 2.5 children. There is no clear relationship between fertility desires and demographic policies or actual fertility performance. For instance, on average relatively small families were preferred in the 1960s and 1970s despite the wave of government pronatalism through most of the region which elevated period levels of fertility.38 In some countries, there has been a tendency towards
37 For a good discussion of the relations between these three concepts, see Berent (1983). It may be noted, however, that in a number of surveys ideal and actually planned numbers of children were found to be not very different. For instance, according to the results of the 1977 Czechoslovak fertility survey the average planned number of children per family was 2.27; the average number of children considered ideal for a family similar to that in which the respondent lived was 2.38; and the average number of children per family considered ideal for the country as a whole was 2.49 (FSO, 1978).
38 Even in Romania, where pronatalist pressure was extraordinarily strong, the number of children preferred by women in 1978 was quite low, and corresponded to one of the lowest levels reported in Europe around the mid-1970s (Berent, 1983).
Table 4.8: Average desired / ideal number of children in Eastern Europe, selected countries and years
C ountry Y ear C h aracteristics of the survey
sam ple (num ber of respondents, m arital status, age range)
A verage desired / ideal fa m ily size
A lbania no inform ation
B ulgaria 1976 6,911 EM W , 15-44 2.25
C zechoslova kia 1956 10,645 C M W , 15-39 2.20
1959 3,191 C M W , 15-49 2.36
1963 1,888 N M W , 15-30, tow ns only 2.12
1964 1,556 N M W , 15-30, villa g e only 2.31
1966 1,000 N M W , aged 21, tow ns only 1.93
1967 1,000 N M W , aged 21, villa g e only 2.14
1970 2,994 C M W , 15-54 2.31 1972 3,470 C M W , 18-49 2.20 1973 400 C M W , 15-34, tow ns only 1.96 1977 3,041 C M W , 18-44 2.27 1981 3,029 C M W , 18-39 2.20 1985 6,184 C M W , 18-39 2.04
E ast G erm any 1987 1,500 W , 18-40 1.93
H ungary 1958 6,732 C M W , 15-49 2.33 1966 8,800 CM W , 15-49 2.10 1974 3,142 C M W , 15-35 2.06 1977 4,009 C M W , 15-40 2.06 1986 3,800 C M W , 18-39 2.00 Poland 1963 2,381 C M W , 15-49 2.26 1972 15,354 C M W , 15-49 2.63 1977 9,799 C M W , 15-45 2.50 1981 7,772 C M W , 15-45 2.30 R om ania 1978 10,141 C M W , 15-49 2.22 Y ugoslavia 1970 5,064 C M W , 15-49 2.71 U SSR 1969 31,002 C M W , 18-39 2.42
Notes: CMW - currently married women, EMW - ever married women, NMW - never married women, W - all women, regardless of marital status.
Sources: Sib (1963, 1973, 1979), Berent (1970, 1983), Srb and Kucera (1959), Srb, Kucera, and Vysusilova (1961), Srb and Kucerak (1974), Frenkel (1976), UN (1976), Wynnyczuk and Sracek (1976), Klinger (1977, 1985), Dvorak, Srb, and Ales (1983), CSO (1980, 1982, 1987), Smolinski (1983), Kraus (1987), Speigner (1988).
reduction of the average desired family size over time, although it may be assumed that an ideal of a childless union or a one-child family remained rare. The data for Hungary, in particular, seem to indicate the process of social re stratification, leading over time to a growing proportion of married women desiring a small family; however, this shift tended to stop at a relatively moderate average level of two children per family.
Table 4.9 shows the distributions of family size preferences ascertained by five fertility surveys conducted in Czechoslovakia between 1956 and 1985. The data indicate a gradual, although not entirely consistent, shift to a small-family ideal among married women. The major trend seems to be the declining desire for larger families. This is true especially for the period between 1970 and 1985 during which the proportion of respondents wishing to have at least three children dropped from about 30 per cent to less than 15 per cent. In each survey, the distribution of desired family sizes is highly concentrated at the two- child norm; this accounts for three-fifths to two-thirds of all responses. Changes over time on the lower end of the distribution of family size preferences were not very dramatic, indicating fluctuations in proportions of women preferring small families. Apparently, permanent childlessness was the goal of only a marginal fraction of the married population, while the one-child family ideal accounted for only between 7 and 13 per cent of all family-size preferences. However, the data in Table 4.9 should be treated with caution as it is not clear to what extent observed differences are the result of dissimilarities in survey designs.
Table 4.9: Distribution of family size preferences in Czechoslovakia (per cent) according to results of selected fertility surveys
Year of survey
Number of children desired: Total
0 1 1-2 2 2-3 3 4+ unknown 1956 4.0 9.1 60.1 21.5 5.3 100.0 1959 0.9 7.8 60.4 25.3 5.6 100.0 1970 1.2 6.7 59.6 — 32.5 — 100.0 1972 1.4 12.9 57.7 22.7 5.3 100.0 1985 0.3 10.0 1.2 64.6 7.4 11.2 3.2 2.1 100.0
Note: For more details about particular surveys, see Table 4.8.
Sources: Srb et al. (1961), Srb (1963), FSO (1971), Srb and Kucerak (1974), Kraus (1987).
The general conclusion emerging from the fertility surveys discussed is that in the post-war decades an overwhelming majority of women in Eastern Europe planned their families to avoid having many children. In Czechoslovakia and Hungary, this tendency was evident in surveys conducted in the late 1950s, and the ideal of a family of two, rather than three, children is then apparent in all subsequent surveys. The persistence of this preference for small families suggests that it did not occur accidentally. It may be hypothesized that one reason for it may have been the low 'value' of children, both as economic and as spiritual assets, which is typical of more modern egalitarian family attitudes. Modern socio-economic development altered the family's economic and educational functions; made children more costly by requiring higher quality in
them; and brought into question their importance relative to that of other family and individual goals and activities. These conditions, along with high levels of female employment, income difficulties, limited housing, low levels of consumer services, uneven sharing of housework between husbands and wives, emergence of alternative sources of social status and psychic satisfaction that previously had been provided by children, and other related factors, weakened the economic and social function of a big family and made a large number of children undesirable. Most of these factors were not unique to Eastern Europe. More peculiar is the fact that the emergence of the small-family ideal in Eastern European countries had already become apparent in the late 1950s and early 1960s, well out of proportion to their development levels or other common determinants of family-size preferences. It is also worth noting that the socio economic changes that took place in these countries in subsequent years appear to have had so little effect on preferred numbers of children in families.
According to Mason (1983), family-size preferences may indicate either that couples have chosen their style of life and the number of children they want on the basis of personally defined goals, or that the social norm of having a particular number of children is so strong that independent decisions on this matter have become nearly impossible. The preference for a two- to three-child family in Eastern Europe could be interpreted in both ways: as an attribute of couples and at the same time as a group characteristic governed by external constraints imposed upon people by the economic and institutional conditions in which they lived. Wroblewski (1965: 28) offers an explanation for the Polish fertility decline of the 1950s which highlights this dual nature of family-size preferences:
A child is a ball and chain in professional and social life. Give up work? Bah! It's easier not to begin a family. One gets used to a larger family budget. Someone making a decent living... would have trouble raising even one child — in spite of the development of nursery schools, playgrounds, and summer camps and in spite of the family allowances. They would have real difficulty in raising two. After all, they have no intention of giving up amenities which have become elementary... like radio, the cinema, or a different pair of shoes in winter and summer. People earning above-average incomes can live decently even with two children, but to them 'decently' means something more. They do not want to lower their standards and would rather buy an automobile or take a trip abroad than have children. And this is what they do. People... [who] had a hard time during the war, after the war, and during the ascetic stalinist [sic] period, give full rein to their appetites now that there is stability... Perhaps they prefer fun to duty, perhaps they have more than enough duties without trying to raise a child...
Thus, Wroblewski seems to suggest that in the 1950s the family-size decisions and life-style preferences of many couples were directly affected by socio- historical events specific to that epoch. It may be hypothesized that these couples could later become 'reference1 or 'identification' families39 for later cohorts, which did not experience the events related to war and Stalinism. Thus, the fertility preferences of the generations which entered the childbearing ages in the 1950s were gradually transformed into a set of family-size norms that persisted long after this period, despite the continuing changes in socio economic conditions. The appearance of many small families may have in itself altered average ideas of the 'normal' number of children and the desirable ways of drawing pleasure from life. Naturally, in the absence of direct empirical evidence to prove this hypothesis, these conclusions must be considered tentative.