FAMILY-PLANNING OF UNIVERSITY-STUDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 2ND DEMOGRAPHIC REVOLUTION

The paper presents the findings of the sociological survey done in 199 7 that was focussed on the university students' opinions about marriag e, partnership, parenthood, desirable number of children and their lif e goals. The findings are discussed in the context of theoretical deba te about the second demographic revolution (van de Kaa, 1996, Matulnik - Pastor 1997) and the decreasing birthrate in Slovakia as its empiri cal indication. The paper suggests that the decreasing birthrate is no t a recent problem in Slovakia - it brings about the overview of the s ocial-demographic studies done before the second world war (led by I. Stodola, E. Tomanek, A. J. Chura, A. Stefanek) that dealt with the iss ue of decrease in the birthrate. Despite the statistics of the falling trend of the birthrate in this decade, many research findings, includ ing the findings of the authors, suggest that young people do not most ly manifest anti procreation attitudes and majority plans to live in m arriage in future and to have two children (the most frequent choice). At the same time, young people would like to maintain the life space for self-realisation and their personal interests. The revealed combin ation of life goals is close to the family planning strategies that ar e typical for younger generation in the western countries.