[3] The theory sets out five socio-economic conditions which jointly create a new scenario:[4] Preference theory posits that in the rare countries that have fully achieved the new scenario for women (she cites only Britain and the Netherlands), women have genuine choices as to how they resolve the conflict between paid jobs and a major investment in family life.
These choices fall into three main groups: women who prioritise their careers and espouse achievement values (a work-centred lifestyle) and often remain childless by choice (about 20%); women who prioritise family life and sharing values (a home-centred lifestyle) and often have many children and little paid work (about 20%); and the majority of women who seek to combine paid jobs and family work in some way without giving absolute priority to either activity or the accompanying values (the adaptive lifestyle).
[3] Catherine Hakim carried out two national surveys, in Britain and Spain, to test the theory, and showed that questions eliciting personal preferences can strongly predict women's employment decisions and fertility.
In contrast, women's behaviour did not predict their attitudes, showing that lifestyle preferences are not post hoc rationalisations.
[8] A follow-up study "found that Hakim’s typology does not work well in the Czech Republic", that there were no important differences in fertility between the three groups in that country.