The social and cultural framework has both similarities and differences among the project countries. Cultural differences have their origin in the historical and religious background of each country. Birth rate, family size and infant mortality are decreasing, while the medium age of marriage and of life expectancy at birth, as well as the divorce rate, are increasing. Infant mortality in all CEE countries, with the exception of Slovenia, is still twice as high as it is in Finland or Austria, and life expectancy for men is under 70 years in all the project countries, while it is 72.9 in Austria, 71.3 in Finland and 71.0 in Ireland. Slovenia has the highest female life expectancy of the CEE countries at 77.4 years.
Mortality is highest in the Baltic countries and in Hungary.
Family size is comparatively small in all the project countries, ranging from 2.6 in the Czech Republic to 4.0 in Estonia and 3.6 in Slovakia. In rural areas families are slightly larger, and farming families have the largest number of children. Marrying age is over 20 years in all the CEE countries except the Czech Republic, where the medium marrying age for women is 18 years. Oxford University Press. 7 GDI measures inequalities in achievement between women and men.