In 2005, the population of the Czech Republic was 10 251.1 thousand (as for December 31), which means an increase of 30.5 thousand, mainly due to an immigration surplus. The Czech population is relatively homogeneous with the more significant social differences existing mainly between different regions. The Carlsbad and Ústí nad Labem Regions are among the regions with the worst social situations as well as the highest rates of abortion, divorce, suicide, unemployment, etc.

Compared with neighboring European countries, the Czech Republic shows relatively good results in economic growth (low unemployment, high rise of GNP, high average salary, etc.). On the other hand, the Czech Republic has one of the highest divorce and abortion rates. These aspects are used to assess the development level of a population. There are a high number of children compulsorily sent to children’s homes and total fertility is one of the lowest in the world (see Chart 1).

Chart 1: Basic demographic and economic indices of the Czech Republic

Index	2004	2005
Total fertility	1.23	1.28
Rate of children born outside marriage	30.60	31.80
Total abortion rate	0.55	0.53
Total divorce rate in %	49.30	47.30
Unemployment (ILO) in %	8.20	7.80
Average salary in CZK	18,035	19,030

The term social exclusion was just recently formalized in 2006 in the frame of Act on Social Services (article 3 of Act No. 108/2006 Coll. on Social Services). Therefore, statistical evidence at the national level which would use this specific category is currently unavailable. We only have a few indirect indicators. Some of them are risk factors that lead to social exclusion or accompany it. One of the characteristic features of social exclusion is the amount of financial resources available to an individual or a family as well as an ability to use them effectively and in a sustainable manner. These characteristics are not the cause of exclusion, but simply a natural manifestation of deeper relationships that cannot be changed in a short time.

At the EU level, the 'Laeken indicators' are used to measure income poverty and social exclusion. The original set of eighteen indicators was endorsed by the Laeken European Council in December 2001. It was argued that these indicators are overly focused on income inequality, relative poverty and labour market participation, leaving significant gaps in the fields such as housing, education or healthcare, and thus subscribing to the traditional emphasis on income poverty and unemployment which is now considered unable to do justice to social exclusion in all its forms and dimensions. Atkinson et al. (2005: 47) identify some of the issues with Laeken indicators, while Guio (2005) provides a basic overview of the topic and instructions on how to find the data on the EU Member States on the Eurostat website. She also notes that the first fully comparable data for the new Member States (including the Czech Republic) will only be available in December 2006.

Family size and social exclusion

Family size is the essential determining factor for social exclusion. It changes in generation perspectives; strands of social policy can change an average family size in just a short term (e.g. the amount of a birth grant). However, in a long-term scenario, they cannot change an average family size either quantitatively nor qualitatively. Graph 1 illustrates distribution of particular types of households according to the number of dependent children living there. The horizontal axis presents the spectrum of net income for each member of a family (in CZK and EUR). We can clearly observe the dependence of a household member’s net income on the number of children who live in the household. The most children (i.e. three children in the graph) are in households with the lowest income per head (27%). Obviously, the number of children decreases with increasing income per head.

Distribution of childless households is also interesting, mainly its culmination in point 1. Pensioners’ households probably significantly influenced the sway. The distribution culminates around CZK 7,000, which roughly equals an old age pension. The main culmination of productive people’s households is probably not achieved until point 2.

Graph 1: Distribution of households according to net income per head and number of children



Due to family size, the Roma are one of the most endangered groups. The Romani subpopulation in the Czech Republic is at the end of the so-called demographic revolution, by which extensive type of demographic reproduction is changed to intensive type. According to the estimation of professor Zdeněk Pavlík, a demographer who has been dealing with the issue in the long term, the total fertility of the Roma is currently about 2.5 (the whole population of the Czech Republic has reached 1.28) and is constantly decreasing. However, the fertility rate of the Roma is almost twice as much as the total Czech Republic rate. This can be one of the factors why it is the Roma who are most endangered by social exclusion.

According to RNDr. Květa Kalibová’s prognosis, the total number of the Roma living in the Czech Republic is below 250,000. However, considering the fact that the most up-to-date and relatively exact data on the number of members of the subpopulation are from 1989, 250,000 is a somewhat approximate estimation with a possibility of variations in hundreds of thousand.

Unlike in the Slovak Republic, where in some more isolated settlements the total fertility can reach 7-8 even today, in the Czech Republic the rate has been steadily decreasing for several decades (probably from the 1960s). This trend has sometimes been belittled by bad conditions in some localities, but in the long term it is irreversible and in the end it will lead to the gradual individualization of the Romani subpopulation.