Women in the Czech Republic

Women were given the right to vote in Czechoslovakia in 1920 with the passage of the Constitution by the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia.[6] This right was promised earlier in 1918 in the "Washington Declaration" written by Tomáš Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia.[7] This decision followed a suffrage movement within Austria-Hungary with prominent Czech suffragists including Františka Plamínková, Marie Tůmová, and Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk.[7] The Czech suffrage movement was tied to the nationalist movement promoting independence. While the right to vote was not codified into law until the 1920 Constitution, female candidates were featured in Czech elections in the early 1920s. Božena Viková-Kunětická became the first women to win elected office in 1912.[7]

The maternal mortality rate in Czech Republic is 5 deaths/100,000 live births (as of 2010).[8] The HIV/AIDS rate is 0.05% of adults (aged 15–49) - estimates of 2013.[9] The total fertility rate (TFR) is 1.43 children born/woman (2014 estimates), one of the lowest in the world.[10] As in many other European countries, family formation has become more liberal, unmarried cohabitation has increased and the connection between fertility and marriage has decreased in the past decades; as of 2017, 49% of births were to unmarried women.[11]

Czech Republic has a very high literacy rate, which is the same for women and men at 99% (estimates of 2011).[12] However more men (95%) than women (92%) have completed high-school (OECD 2014).[13]