Other

Respondents’ opinions showed their prevailing conviction that “human relations in the Czech Republic are more bad than good”, compared with 41 % of respondents, who said that relations between people here are “definitely good” or “more good than bad”. The negative opinion was voiced by a total of 54 %, who described it as “more bad than good” or “definitely bad”.

The most significant change since 1992 occurred in the area of relation between parents and children - in 1992 there were only two percentage points more of those saying that these relations had got worse than those thinking they had become better.

In the March survey, among other things we concentrated on the satisfaction of citizens with the environment in the place where they live. The greatest contentment was recorded for availability of wide open countryside, scoring 86 %. Approximately three quarters of citizens are satisfied with the cleanness of the countryside in their vicinity and quality of drinking water. About two thirds of respondents are content with the air quality and the noise level in their neighbourhood.

The general situation in the country is valued by people in more of a critical way (39 %) than positively (10 %), although it is most often seen as “neither good nor bad” (49 %). On the other hand, the evaluation of the current situation from the point of view of family is predominantly positive - 43 % of respondents see their current life and the life of their family in bright colours, the same number of respondents consider it to be “neither good nor bad” and only 13 % of them had a critical view in this respect.

The results of the Public Opinion Research Centre survey shows that 70 % of single women and 69 % of single men would like to get married in the future. 12 % of single women and 6 % of single men decided not to conclude a marriage in their future life. The most frequently named reasons for getting married were “children” (66 %) and the opinion that "two is better than one” (34 %), a quarter of respondents consider taking marriage vows to be “obvious and normal”.

In December 2003 Public Opinion Research Centre also included in its survey two open questions, where respondents named what they disliked most about human character and behaviour of people. The results of the survey show that as to the human character respondents dislike pretentiousness, lying and jealousy most, and with respect to the behaviour of people the first spots were occupied by pretentiousness, lying and aggressiveness.

Czech citizens rate the health care system of their country in a more favourable way than Hungarians, but simultaneously they view it significantly more critically than a year ago. At the present, 34 % of them are satisfied with the health care system in the CZ, on the other hand 36 % feel dissatisfaction with it. Every second person is content with the actual medical care, the share of those dissatisfied represent approximately one fifth of the population above 15 years of age.

According to the results of our December survey, most Czechs are reliable and try to fulfil their obligations. Eight out of ten respondents said that they fulfil their obligation towards authorities and friends in time. The rule “business before pleasure” is adhered to by more than 60 % of the population of our country. Most Czech citizens have a tendency to plan their future and not to act only on the spur of the moment.

In December 2003 Public Opinion Research Centre also included a few psychological questions in its survey. Among other things, we wanted to establish the attitude of Czech citizens towards their past. Overall, we can say that most Czechs have their own past and particularly childhood connected with positive emotions. Three quarters of respondents admitted that images, sounds and smells known from childhood often evoked in them nice memories and when looking back 7 out of 10 respondents recollect considerably more good than bad.

One of the fields, which was researched within the section “Historical and Ethnic Regions in the CZ”, were ideas of people about differences in inhabitants of individual regions compared with foreigners and ethnic minorities. The results show that compared with other surveyed options the fewest people dare to claim that they would recognise inhabitants of their own region, most of them are convinced they would recognise foreigners on a short-term stay in the CZ.

During the November survey carried out within the project Czech Society 2003 we among other things were finding out the opinion of citizens concerning the importance of historical and ethnic regions. The first question was to establish general viewpoints of whether historical and ethnic regions were important, the second question surveyed opinions concerning the significance of regions from the point of view of identity strengthening and culture development.