Croatia

Croatia—until 1991 a part of Yugoslavia—has a population of 4.5 million (2008 estimate), with a female life expectancy of 78.5 years. It has a birth rate of 9.6 per 1,000, and an infant mortality rate of 6.7 per 1,000 live births. The crude divorce rate in the country is 1.12 divorces per 1,000 marriages (2004 estimate). In 2006, 44.6 percent of women aged 15 and older in Croatia were in the labor force, and their employment-to-population ratio was 38.3.

Croatia provides mandatory maternal leave from 28 days before the expected date of birth to 42 days following the actual birth; the leave may be extended until the child is 1 year old. After the 42nd day after birth, the father can take work leave in place of the mother. Mothers receive 100 percent of their salary until the child is 6 months old.

Abortion is available upon request in Croatia; the woman certifies in writing that she wants an abortion, and must receive counseling at least six days prior to the procedure.

In traditional Croatian societies, motherhood was a task shared by the mother and members of her extended family. Although help from midwives could be provided in towns, access was much more limited in the rural areas.

The Venetians managed to hold much of coastal Croatia, parts of which were later controlled by Austria. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French occupied the region, and health services were dramatically improved in the cities. From the 1750s, it has been possible to trace the rates of maternal mortality using parish records, which researchers Hammel and Gullickson were able to do. Their research showed clearly that women marrying into large extended families had a far greater chance to survive childbirth, a trend that continued through to the 1890s.

The role of mothers continued to center on bringing up children, preparing food, and looking after the house and crops, which resulted in few women able to develop careers of their own. A Croatian-born citizen with a Croation father, Josip Tito described how his mother, herself a Slovene, spent much of her time desperately trying to ensure there was enough food for the family; she herself was from a family of 14.

There was some attempt to improve the health care provision and midwifery services during the 1920s and 1930s, but this was largely restricted to cities. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the Yugoslav government was able to introduce measures to reduce the infant and maternal mortality rates. With better education for girls, and some women managing to enter professions with others taking factory or farm work, there was a trend toward having smaller families, which has continued to the present day. Despite Croatia remaining overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, it has a low fertility rate—in 2002 it was 1.4, only slightly higher in much of the rest of eastern Europe.

The percentage of extramarital births has risen during the same period from 4.9 percent, to 8.2 percent, the lowest in Europe. The divorce rate in 1999 was 0.13, also one of the lowest in Europe. Save the Children ranks Croatia 34h among 41 tier I or more developed countries on the Mothers' Index, 26th on the Women's Index, and 35th on the Children's Index.

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