Children of the state? The role of pronatalism in the development of Czech childcare and reproductive health policies

The chapter explores how pronatalism has influenced the formation of reproductive and care policies in Czechia. It shows that the pronatalist framing has been selective in the historical as well as the present-day debates on reproduction. Although pronatalist framing presents itself as resting on statistical evidence of decreasing, low, or insufficiently rising fertility, the analysis shows that how the situation at a given time is defined has been more important than the actual birth rate (trend) itself. It also shows that the pronatalist framing can be employed to increase fertility to assert policies that have very different consequences for women, men, and gender equality. The high visibility of the pronatalist framing and the low visibility of the rights and equality framing in the formation of reproductive and care policies is explained by the need to find a consensus across the spectrum of political actors.