DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
A peer-reviewed, open-access journal of population sciences
DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
VOLUME 49, ARTICLE 24, PAGES 635-650
PUBLISHED 5 OCTOBER 2023
https://www.demographic-research.orgA^ olumesA^ol49/24/
DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2023.49.24
Descriptive Finding
Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the
COVID-19 pandemic
Martin Kreidl
Barbora Hubatkova
© 2023 Martin Kreidl & Barbora Hubatkova.
This open-access work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Germany (CC BY 3.0 DE), which permits use, reproduction,
and distribution in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source
are given credit.
See https://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode.
Contents
1 Introduction 636
2 Uncertainty and partnerships during the pandemic 636
3 Data, variables, and method 637
4 Context: COVID-19 in Czechia 638
5 Results 639
5.1 Subjective partnership quality 639
5.2 Separation proneness 642
5.3 Intersectional view: do gender and education interact? 643
6 Conclusions 645
7 Acknowledgements 645
References 647
Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
Descriptive Finding
Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Martin Kreidl1
Barbora Hubatkova2
Abstract
BACKGROUND
There are several published investigations of family life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, only a few describe trends in partnership quality, and none do so for the later
stages of the pandemic.
OBJECTIVE
We want to show how various measures of partnership quality develop over time and
whether trends differ by respondent's sex and education.
METHODS
We use non-parametric descriptive methods based on aggregated weekly measures of
subjectively assessed partnership quality and separation proneness. These dependent
variables are obtained from a preliminary version of the Czech GGS2 survey; all
respondents interviewed between May and December 2021 are retained for analysis. We
apply a scatter plot smoother to weekly means and display them graphically.
RESULTS
We document a massive deterioration in both measures of partnership quality. For
instance, separation proneness increased from 2% to 28% between May and December
2021. The trend was more pronounced among women and individuals without college
education. Among less-educated women separation proneness reached 35% in December
2021.
CONTRIBUTION
This paper suggests that the negative effects of COVID-19 may unfold and cumulate over
a long period and may become extreme, especially when combined with additional
external stressors such as rising price levels and energy market turbulence, which were
apparent in Czechia in the latter half of 2021.
1
Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Jostova 10, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic.
Email: kreidlm@fss.muni.cz.
2
Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Jostova 10, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic.
Email: 220208@mail.muni.cz.
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Kreidl & Hubatková: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted families in many detrimental ways (Lebow 2020;
Zartler, Suwada, and Kreyenfeld 2022). Several surveys organized in spring 2020 show
increased gender inequality in households (Hipp and Biinning 2021; Fodor et al. 2021),
less satisfaction with family life (Zoch, Báchmann, and Vicari 2021), increased domestic
violence (Kim and Kim 2021), and lower partnership satisfaction (Schmid et al. 2021;
Pauly et al. 2022). However, the pandemic continued beyond 2020 and was not a single
event, but rather a series of developments with possibly cumulative effects (Hudde,
Hamk, and Jacob 2023).
This paper focuses on changes in union satisfaction in the more advanced phase of
the pandemic (summer and autumn of 2021) in Czechia. This was a particularly intriguing
period when a new COVID-19 wave coincided with other disruptive developments such
as rising prices and turbulence in the energy markets. We argue that union satisfaction
was affected differently during the different stages of the pandemic, depending on
available resources, objective circumstances, and subjective perceptions. It therefore
makes sense to pay particular attention to changes over time (cf. Guetto, Vignoli, and
Bazzani 2021; Sanchez, Fasang, and Harkness 2021; Zamberlan, Gioachin, and Gritti
2022), especially among the most disadvantaged segments of the population (Reader and
Andersen 2022; L i et al. 2022). For that reason, we describe overall trends in union
satisfaction as well as developments within segments of the population defined by
education and gender to show how disadvantages combined (Langmeyer et al. 2022).
2. Uncertainty and partnerships during the pandemic
Uncertainty is linked to several demographic variables in detrimental ways (Blom et al.
2019; Conger et al. 1990; Kreyenfeld, Andersson, and Pailhé 2012). The COVID-19
pandemic created a unique situation in which a wide array of uncertainties affected most
(if not all) members of society (Mohring et al. 2021; Sanchez-Mira, Moles-Kalt, and
Bernardi 2022) via multiple channels: financial strain, changes to the organization of
work and care, social isolation, and health concerns (Balzarini et al. 2023; Mohring et al.
2021; Pauly et al. 2022; Sladká and Kreidl 2022). The combined (and possibly
cumulative) effects of these variables during COVID-19 have not been investigated.
Most analyses have described only a change in union satisfaction when comparing
the pre-pandemic period and a relatively narrow window of time around the first
lockdowns in spring 2020. This is mainly due to data limitations. Several cross-sectional
surveys were conducted during spring 2020 with retrospective reports on the prepandemic
situation (e.g., Guetto, Vignoli, and Bazzani 2021; Kushtanina and Vinel 2021;
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
Pieh et al. 2020). A few surveys were also fielded in spring 2020 as part of existing
infrastructures, but very few extended into the later stages of the pandemic (for
exceptions see Pasqualini et al. 2022; Zamberlan, Gioachin, and Gritti 2022). However,
only two studies have explored trends in partnership satisfaction over the various stages
of the pandemic. Balzarini et al. (2023) report an increase in loneliness and stress, but no
deterioration in partnership satisfaction in a panel covering 57 countries between March
and June 2020. A drop in subjective relationship satisfaction in Czechia was observed in
a two-wave panel between December 2020 and April 2021 (Zvoníček, Fučík, and Kreidl
2023).
3. Data, variables, and method
Our analysis used a preliminary version of the Czech data from the first wave of the
second round of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS; Kreidl et al. 2023). The GGS
is an internationally harmonized survey focusing on partnerships, fertility, household
organization, and care arrangements. It is a key component of the Generations and Gender
Programme, a large research infrastructure providing researchers with policy-relevant,
cross-culturally comparable data covering over 20 countries (Gauthier, Cabaco, and
Emery 2018). Data collection for the most recent Czech GGS began in November 2020
and continued (with some interruptions) until July 2022. However, we could only use a
preliminary version of the data, which was obtained in December 2021 (our focus is
therefore on data for calendar weeks 21 to 50 of 2021). The sample was constructed via
probability sampling and interviews were conducted using a combination of CAPI and
CAWI (CAPI was used in less than 3% of cases). Respondents were recruited through
two methods: in their homes (at randomly selected addresses) and via a random digit
dialling method; the ratio of these two recruitment methods in this sample was
approximately 2:1. We analysed the data for respondents who lived in a heterosexual
coresidential partnership and reported valid values for all necessary variables (N = 944).
We divided the sample into weekly periods based on the interview date; there were
30 such intervals. For each time interval (and the overall population or the sub-population
defined by sex/education), we computed (using the smoothing method described below)
the predicted values of two dependent variables: (1) respondent's satisfaction with the
partnership, measured on a 0-10 scale (0 is the lowest and 10 is the highest satisfaction;
mean is 8.73, sd= 1.63), and (2) a binary variable indicating that the respondent has
recently thought about breaking up with his/her partner (0-no, 1-yes; 15% of respondents
said yes; this variable is called 'separation proneness'; see Moore and Buehler 2011).
Our sample was not designed to be representative within each week. This is
especially true for the sample of addresses, which were distributed to fieldworkers based
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Kreidl & Hubatkovd: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
on availability (not every fieldworker worked every week) and convenience (assigned
addresses were located close to the fieldworker's residence). We chose a simple
smoothing strategy - a scatter plot smoother, which is available as a user-written
procedure mrunning in STATA (Royston and Cox 2005) - to mitigate the problem of
non-representativity within time units. The objective of the smoother is to offer a picture
of the relation between a response variable and a continuous predictor and is considered
"a valuable tool in exploratory data analysis" (Royston and Cox 2005: 405). The
smoother is completely non-parametric and is intended to visualize trends by removing
noise from the data, which was especially necessary when analysing subsamples (the
smallest sub-sample was that of college-educated men with N = 174). The smoother is
estimated by backfitting (Royston and Cox 2005: 405) and we set it up so that 20% of
neighbouring cases are considered when computing the predicted value.
We ran the smoother, saved predicted values, and then applied graphical methods to
display trends. When applying the procedure we constrained predicted values to fall
within the interval of acceptable values of the respective dependent variable. We also
used a substitution method for missing predicted values, taking the average of the
neighbouring weeks if there were no observations with a particular combination of traits.
We describe the overall trend as well as trends within categories of sex and/or education.
Our interpretation relies entirely on the assessment of substantive significance. We
consider changes of less than 0.5 (on the relationship quality scale) or 0.05 (when
measuring the share of individuals thinking about breakup) to be non-significant and
changes of more than 1 point (or 0.1 when examining shares) to be very strong.
4. Context: COVID-19 in Czechia
In early 2021 Czechia emerged from a sequence of three COVID-19 waves and the
strictest set of restrictions (Slabá 2022), which had stopped fieldwork operations for the
Czech GGS. Data collection was resumed in May 2021. The subsequent weeks were
characterized by low COVID numbers, but the situation began to worsen in late summer,
culminating in the second half of November with almost 28,000 new confirmed daily
infections. Some restrictions were put in place that autumn, but they concerned
vaccination certificates and limitations to the size of gatherings rather than typical
lockdown measures such as closed schools. Table 1 summarizes the context of the
observed period, including important social and political events and selected findings
from opinion surveys.
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
Table 1: Context of analysis: Confirmed COVID-19 cases, major events, and
public opinion by week
Week COVID cases Survey data Major events
The representative cross-sectional survey Our Society
repeatedly asks respondents to evaluate near-future
developments regarding COVID* In weeks 5-6, 32%
of respondents say the situation will get better, 3 1 %
Context for weeks 1-20 declare it will get worse, and 33% assume it will
remain the same. In weeks 12-15, 62% say the
situation will get better and 12% say it will get worse.
21 3,235
22 2,387
Our Society respondents are still optimistic: 62%
maintain that the situation will get better, 10% say it
will get worse.
Strict COVID lockdown measures are lifted in week 15
after being in place since week 8. People aged 80+
have been able to register to get vaccinated since
week 2.
Russian GRU agents are linked to the Vrbetice
ammunition warehouse explosion (2014), thwarting
plans to import the Sputnik V COVID vaccine (week
15).
23 1,444
25 710
26 1,028
27 1,389
40 6,037
41 9,630
45 77,044
46 107,506
47 128,635
50 68,429
Only 3 1 % of respondents say the situation will get
better, while 36% think it will get worse and 26%
assume it will not change.
29% of respondents say the situation will get better,
47% say it will get worse.
A tornado (F4 on the tornado damage scale) destroys
several villages in the South Moravian region.
Czech parliamentary election, victory of (democratic)
opposition.
Bohemia Energy, one of the largest energy suppliers
with about 1 million customers, and a few other
smaller suppliers go bankrupt due to rising power
prices.
Czech president is hospitalized, prognosis uncertain.
President released from hospital.
Omicron variant confirmed in Czechia.
Government appointed by the president.
Wore: * The question was: "Do you think the situation in Czechia regarding the spread of COVID-19 will get better, remain the same or
get worse during the next few months?"
5. Results
5.1 Subjective partnership quality
Figure 1 (left panel) presents the overall change in average relationship quality. We can
see that relationship quality was quite high in May 2021 (mean 9.1 in calendar week 21);
this figure is higher than Zvoníček, Fučík, and Kreidl (2023) found in a Czech nonrepresentative
sample (in their data the mean satisfaction was 8.3 points in December
2020). Relationship quality then declined to around 8.7 points, where it remained (with
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Kreidl & Hubatkovd: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
little oscillation) for another 20 weeks, only to experience another decline to 8.1 in week
50. Overall, in 30 weeks the average relationship quality declined one full point on the
0-10 scale.
Figure 1: Average relationship satisfaction and share of respondents thinking
about breakup, per calendar week. Czechia, May-December 2021.
Number of cases = 944
CI>
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w co
Q.
</>
c
o
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CD
c
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CD
^ m
CD
20
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03
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o
.o
CO
si
CO
25
— i 1 1—
30 35 40
Calendar week
45 50
~i r
30 35 40
Calendar week
50
Figure 2 presents relationship quality in sub-populations defined by education (top
panels) and sex (bottom panels). We observe that respondents without a college degree
experienced a decline in subjective relationship quality, which dropped from 9.7 points
(week 21) to 8.1 points (week 50). College-educated respondents, on the other hand,
witnessed improving relationship quality (from 7.6 in week 21 to 8.7 in week 50; see the
top right panel in Figure 2).
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
Figure 2: Average relationship satisfaction, per calendar week, by education
and sex. Czechia, May-December 2021. Number of cases = 944
c No college
.2 o J
ro
CD
c
^ n 1 1 1 1 1 1
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Calendar week
c Men
•S ° o
^ .
•B -
to
CD
i- |^ -
CD
CD
^ n 1 1 1 1 1 1
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Calendar week
College
o _
CO -
I—
Calendar week
Women
o _
CD -
00 -
t
Calendar week
We see little change in relationship quality as reported by men: the line starts at 8.9
points (week 21) and ends at 8.7 points in week 50 (lower left panel of Figure 2), which
is a trivial change. For women, on the other hand, we see more variation over time and a
clear decline in average relationship quality. Female respondents reported high
relationship quality in the early observation period (9.3 in week 21), which then declined
to 8.6 (weeks 24 to 27). After a period of stabilization (until week 39) another period of
rapid decline followed between weeks 43 and 50, when women's relationship satisfaction
reached its low of 7.9 points (see the lower right panel of Figure 2). Overall, women
experienced a deterioration of subjective relationship quality over this observation
window, going from 9.3 to 7.9.
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Kreidl & Hubatkovd: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
5.2 Separation proneness
Figure 1 (right panel) turns our attention to the share of respondents who admitted
thinking about breaking up with their partner. Separation proneness was around 0.02 (i.e.,
only 2% of people were thinking about separation) at the beginning of our observation
window. Some older, pre-pandemic surveys indicated that 7% of couples experienced
separation proneness (Sladka and Kreidl 2023). Separation proneness grew rapidly in
subsequent weeks to reach 0.16 in week 26. After a period of stabilization, separation
proneness started to increase again around week 45 to reach 0.28 in week 50. This
represents an unprecedented deterioration in relationship quality over a relatively short
observation window.
Figure 3 shows separation proneness by education and sex. Clearly, thinking about
union dissolution skyrocketed in the latter part of 2021 in both education categories.
Among respondents without college education, separation proneness rose from 0.02
(week 21) to 0.23 (week 50; see the top two panels of Figure 3). College-educated
individuals experienced a similar development, going from values below 0.05 (in
calendar weeks 21 to 22) to 0.22 (in weeks 49 and 50; see the top right panel of Figure
3). Both men and women experienced increases in separation proneness. While the share
of men thinking about leaving their partner rose to 0.15 (bottom left panel of Figure 3),
the increase was much more dramatic among women, for whom it reached 0.35 in
calendar week 50 (bottom right panel of Figure 3).
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
Figure 3: Share of respondents that had recently thought about breaking up
with their partner, per calendar week, by education and sex. Czechia,
May-December 2021. Number of cases = 944
8^-
2 o •
en
co
20 25
No college
30 35 40
Calendar week
45 50 20 25
College
30 35 40
Calendar week
45 50
Men Women
co 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Calendar week Calendar week
5.3 Intersectional view: do gender and education interact?
While there is clear evidence that relationship quality deteriorated in Czechia between
May and December 2021, we also observed that some subpopulations were harder hit.
Men, on average, fared better than women on both dependent variables. College
education also represented a protective factor, at least as far as average subjective
relationship quality is concerned. Are the effects of education and sex additive, or do they
interact to create a particularly heavy burden of disadvantage?
Figure 4 shows changes in both dependent variables by education and sex combined.
This figure reveals some noteworthy interactions. Most notably, women without a college
degree experienced the worst developments on both dependent variables. For instance,
their average relationship satisfaction declined by two full points (from 9.6 to 7.6); the
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Kreidl & Hubatkovd: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
second-worst change was a decline by 1 point (from 9.9 to 8.9) among men without
college (top left panel in Figure 4). Of the four combinations of sex and education, only
one (men with college education) experienced some improvement in reported
relationship quality.
When we focus on the second dependent variable (thinking about breakup), we
observe a similar pattern: women without college education witnessed the largest
increase in separation proneness (increasing from 0.08 in week 21 to 0.35 in week 50;
see the bottom left panel in Figure 4). This last point cannot be overemphasized: fully
35% of women without college admitted in December 2021 that they had thought about
leaving their partner. This is an increase of 27 percentage points since May 2021. A l l
other combinations of sex and education experienced much smaller increases in
separation proneness.
Figure 4: Relationship quality and share of respondents that had recently
thought about breaking up with their partner, per calendar week, by
sex and education. Czechia, May-December 2021. Number of cases =
944
Relationship satisfaction
No College College
30 35 40
Calendar week
30 35 40
Calendar week
Thinking about break-up
No College
/
/
/
" /
1 1
20 25
30 35 40 45
Calendar week
50
College
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Calendar week
Men Women
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
6. Conclusions
This short paper described trends in partnership quality in Czechia during the later stages
of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely between May and December 2021. Over that period
we observed a massive deterioration of two indices of relationship quality among
coresident couples: subjective relationship satisfaction and separation proneness. For
instance, the proportion of people who admitted that they had recently thought about
leaving their partner increased from 2% to 28%. Women reported much worse
developments than men, as did respondents without college education. Women with
lower education were impacted the most. Separation proneness increased by 27
percentage points (to 35% in December 2021) in this group.
While it may be tempting to attribute these developments solely to the COVID-19
pandemic, we are cautious, as there were other concurrent developments not directly
related to the pandemic that increased the burden on families and households and made
some social categories particularly vulnerable. These included rising price levels and
interest rates (which impacted mortgage payments), strong turbulence in energy markets
(international as well as national; several major Czech energy suppliers went bankrupt in
October 2021 and almost one million Czech households were transferred to the 'supplier
of last resort', which charged prices several times higher than households had paid
previously; see Table 1 for additional contextual information), as well as other factors
that combined to increase stress and uncertainty.
Our data does not allow us to differentiate the unique effect of each of these
contextual variables. Even though the data collection for the Czech GGS continued
beyond December 2021, adding these extra weeks would not necessarily increase our
interpretive (and analytical) leverage, as other external events (such as the war in Ukraine,
which began in February 2022, and related developments in energy and other markets)
would have to be added to the group of potential explanatory factors. We invite other
scholars to examine trends in relationship quality in other contexts and within other data
sets to increase our shared knowledge base and to possibly propose theories that would
help provide adequate interpretations.
7. Acknowledgements
This research received financial support from the Czech Science Foundation (project
num. 20-12364S). We would like to thank participants of the RN21 ESA conference
Quantitative Methods and the COVID19 Pandemic at the University of Salamanca
(Salamanca, October 5-7, 2022) and of the 20t h
annual conference of the European
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Kreidl & Hubatkovd: Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Divorce Network at Masaryk University (Brno, October 13-15,2022) for their comments
and suggestions that significantly contributed to the final shape of this paper.
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Demographic Research: Volume 49, Article 24
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