Czech men don't know how to date. Women say they are giving up

In a recent interview with Czech news outlet Seznam Zprávy, sociologist Martin Kreidl of Masaryk University described what he sees as a fundamental shift away from partnered life.

Kriedl, who is the coordinator of the country's Contemporary Czech Family research, has been tracking how partnership, parenthood, and fertility plans are changing.

Around 90 percent of Czech children are born to parents in a more permanent relationship, he told the publication, meaning fewer relationships inevitably translate into fewer births.

The findings come as Czechia confronts a historic fertility slump. In 2025, just 77,636 babies were born in Czechia, the lowest number since statistical records began in 1785.

Births fell for the fourth consecutive year, dropping 8 percent from 2024 and 31 percent from their 2021 peak. The total fertility rate also fell to 1.28 children per woman, down from 1.83 in 2021.

But Kreidl says the baby problem may start well before people decide whether to have children. Findings show that increasingly, young Czechs aren't forming the relationships that might lead to families in the first place.

Among young single men, one of the most common explanations for not having a partner is bluntly self-critical, Kreidl says: they don't know how to date.

"They can't meet people, they can't communicate, they can't establish and maintain a close relationship," Kreidl told Seznam Zprávy. They also struggle to arrange a date that leads to another date, he said.

Even among men aged 30 to 39, up to half acknowledge that they lack the ability to form a relationship.

Women, meanwhile, seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Some say they have looked for partners but have resigned themselves to singleness after disappointing experiences and fear of being hurt again.

By their 30s and 40s, Kreidl said, a significant proportion of single women report that they are either content without a partner or no longer believe they will find a suitable one.

If the quality of the dating pool seems like a rather simplified explanation for the nation's plunging birth rate, Kreidl acknowledges that it is, but says the pattern has emerged from the research.

"Women frequently respond that men can feel like 'another child' in a relationship," Kreidl said. "From their perspective, some men expect care, domestic service, emotional connection and easier access to sex while contributing comparatively little to the relationship in return."

The partnership shift is happening alongside a broader retreat from fertility plans.

Research from the Contemporary Czech Family project found a significant decline between 2020 and 2022 in both short- and long-term intentions to have children among people aged 18–39.

The decline was particularly pronounced among people in more precarious economic circumstances.

Kreidl said the latest data also show only about one-third of people who planned to have a child actually had one between 2022 and 2025.

Fertility is another complication in the examination of falling birth rates. Almost a quarter of women in the study said they had tried to have a child at some point but were unsuccessful, he added.

That does not mean every Czech man fits the description, or that women are uniformly abandoning relationships. But Kreidl's findings suggest that government efforts to encourage young people to partner up and have children, and giving them financial incentives to do so, may be missing the point.

He argues that Czech pro-population family policy needs to address the quality of young people's lives as a whole, including affordable housing, job and financial security, mental-health care and access to childcare, rather than focusing narrowly on incentives for parents.

And the shift extends far beyond young people struggling on the apps. Across Czech society, roughly 20 percent of people have no partner at all, Kreidl said. "They don't simply live alone; they aren't in a relationship of any kind."