During the last couple of decades, paid childcare has become one of the central issues of feminist research. Agencies mediating childcare are a relatively new actor in childcare arrangements in the Czech Republic. This article argues that these agencies do not fill a gap in the market by offering childcare. Far from providing simple supply that reacts to a market demand, the agencies create the demand for specific care. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted with owners of these agencies, the text looks into the ways in which childcare is constructed. The issues of qualified, specialized, and professionalized care are discussed. The article aims to show that childcare in the agencies is deconstructed as a natural female activity and is reconstructed as a gendered activity requiring particular skills that are subjected to professional screening., Adéla Souralová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The article offers a comparison of the development of institutions of care for children under the age of three in France and in the Czech Republic. It explains the differences in the forms of institutions, policies and the level of state support using a comparative analysis of the discourses of childcare that have existed in the two countries since the end of the Second World War. Expert discourses in particular were found to have an important role in the development of institutions and policies: psychological discursive framings had a strong influence on the public discourse, political decisions and the resulting form of institutions. While in France mainly empirically‑oriented psychologists and pedagogues entered the debate, in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic the discursive arena was dominated by clinical psychologists and paediatricians. Other influential factors were identified, such as the economic situation, political actors, social movements; and sequencing of events; but the expert discourse was proved to be crucial for the understanding of the divergent development of childcare institutions in the two countries., Radka Dudová, Hana Hašková., Obsahuje bibliografii, and Anglické resumé
The article explores the frequency and intensity of childcare provided by grandparents. It uses the 2006/2007 SHARE data for 12 countries with a special focus on the Czech Republic. Past research usually distinguishes between the North-European model with high frequency and low intensity grand-parenting and the Southern-European model with low frequency and high intensity grand-parenting. This article shows that the Czech Republic - along with Germany and Austria - cannot be easily classified into these two broad patterns. Czech grandparents tend to participate in childcare with low frequency and low intensity, particularly in the case of children under 3 years of age. Low maternal labor force participation is used as an argument explaining this finding., Dana Hamplová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The article aims to analyse the consequences that interrupting labour market participation for the purpose of childcare has on the careers of Czech women. The analysis is conducted in two steps. In the first step the author examines patterns of employment breaks for childcare between different groups of women, in particular between women who had their children before and those who had them after the fall of the socialist regime. In the second step, the author explores how Czech women perceive the consequences of these career breaks and what socio-economic factors affect the perceptions of women. The analyses are based on the ESS data from 2004. The outcome of the analyses suggests that women who had at least one child after 1989 are more likely to interrupt their career for longer periods of time than women who gave birth before 1989. At the same time, these women report that employment breaks had more negative consequences on their career compared to women who had children before the fall of the socialist regime., Marie Valentová., 3 tabublky, and Obsahuje bibliografii