Prague, June 24 (CTK) – Experts from the Czech Academy of Sciences (AV CR) are launching a four-year research that will focus on changes in Czech society and that will start with a survey conducted on 10,000 families randomly selected across the Czech Republic, sociologist Filip Lachmann, told CTK yesterday.
The AV CR will cooperate with Brno’s Masaryk University on the research that will start in July.
In up to two-hour interviews, members of the selected families will be asked about their views and plans for the future. The survey will be anonymous. Underage respondents will also be involved, Lachmann said.
The addresses of about 12,000 households have been chosen from the database of the Czech Statistical Office (CSU), said Michaela Roeschova, Lachmann’s colleague from the AV CR’s Institute of Sociology.
The households’ participation in the survey is voluntary and carries a financial reward. The AV CR will not release the relevant sum beforehand, Roeschova said.
She estimated that one in two families addressed would show readiness to be surveyed.
The research is to produce unique information about the living conditions and positions of Czech families.
“Unlike previous surveys, the research will monitor the behaviour and opinions of all members of the families involved, and also the way the families’ situation will be changing in time,” said Dana Hamplova, one of the researchers.
The pollsters will ask, for example, what prevents Czech mothers from returning to work after maternity leave and how the situation could be improved.
They will also ask what restricts young people in having offspring, whether Czechs need to change their place of residence to find a job, and how quickly school leavers and university graduates succeed in finding a job.
“The diversity of issues in focus will enable us to find out how important social events influence households and to clear up some surprising facts of everyday life,” Hamplova said.
“For example, we know that married men and women live longer, but the question is why. We also want to know what aspects people ponder on in connection with so important a step as the purchase of a house, and whether they sometimes decide rather rashly,” Hamplova said.
The Institute of Sociology will release the research results gradually, also on its website. The first release is expected this September.
