These rapid increases are admittedly also the result of the rise in proportions of first births in the declining total, but they undeniably indicate that childbearing within cohabiting unions is spreading in Central and Eastern Europe.The verdict seems to be that the economic crisis had indeed destabilized the earlier demographic regime, but also that the SDT had been nascent before 1990 and that is it developing further. In other words, the SDT is emerging in Central and Eastern Europe as a feature that is there to stay, just as in the West. Once more it is emerging as a salient characteristic of capitalist economies and of cultures that recognize the primacy of individual autonomy and that develop the higher-order needs.