The paper focuses on the changes that have occurred in women’s academic research careers and compares two generations: women who built their career under state socialism (before 1989) and the contemporary young generation of women. It aims to contribute to the discussion of how the current transformation of science and the academic work environment has impacted gender equality and women’s careers in academia. A life-course approach is used to analyse the interplay between individual, institutional, and structural barriers in women’s careers. Drawing on in-depth narrative interviews, the analysis focuses on the interaction between academic research work paths, institutional and organisational conditions, and family paths and examines the milestones that formed the career paths of women now and in the past, how the dynamics of an academic research career have changed, and how the ways and conditions for combining work life and motherhood have changed. The author argues that the neoliberal transformation of the academic labour market and current Czech family policy leave women increasingly less able to fit their life biography into their preferred career model than they could before 1989.
Attitudes towards women in politics and gender culture in general have implications for the status of women in politics and their descriptive representation. In the paper we ask what attitudes people have in the Czech Republic towards women in politics and their descriptive representation, how these attitudes have changed across time, and what factors are associated with these changes. We draw mainly on a survey carried out in 2014, and we compare its data with survey data collected in 2006. The analysis indicates that people nowadays seem to be more tolerant of the low representation of women in politics and are less supportive of using active measures to promote women in politics than they were in the past. The analysis also shows that the decline in support for women in politics is by far the most significant among men, especially men with low education and men who assess the living standard of their household as poor. The paper further deals with the possible sources of this shift in attitudes and suggest a hypothesis and topics for further research.
Current data show that most elderly care in the Czech Republic, as well as worldwide, is provided by family members and in most cases women. Men also provide care, but they are less likely to do so, the intensity of the care they do provide is not as great, and the care activities they engage in are of a different type than those performed by women. This article seeks to answer two questions: What share of Czech women and men are caring for an elderly member in the family? Do the experiences of sons and daughters as caregivers differ? For this purpose the article presents a quantitative analysis of the Wave 5 of the SHARE 2013 dataset and a qualitative analysis of in‑depth interviews with men and women caring for their frail elderly mother (and father). The results indicate that although the share of men providing some care in the CR is similar to the share of women, as carers men spend less time providing care, and they are more likely to care for their wife or partner than for other family members. Daughters are more likely to be the ones who provide care when an elderly parent needs more intensive help. Qualitative data indicate that when caring for their parents, men and women tend to ‘do gender’, if not in their care practices, then in their narrations of care. Men tend to provide care that is ‘good enough’ (instead of ‘the best’ care) and to use managerial and expert discourse when talking about care.
The article ties in with the scholarship on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender equality. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with parents of children under 12, we examine the processes that led to the increase or dismantling of the gender division of labour in families during the first nationwide lockdown. Using the concepts of path dependency and ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender, we explain the strategies couples with children used to adapt to the enormous increase in reproductive work in the family during lockdown. ‘Doing gender’ practices witnessed during lockdown included an acceptance of the increased care work as the responsibility of women, ensuring ‘a room of one’s own’ only for men, and separating the public and private sphere only for men. Practices that led to ‘undoing gender’ involved mainly the explicit negotiation between partners of the division of labour during the lockdown and the organisation of reproductive work in ‘shifts’. The division of labour within a couple before the pandemic proved to be crucial for what strategy they chose to adapt to the lockdown. According to our findings, extending the egalitarian division of labour has led to greater satisfaction among partners and indicates greater societal resilience to crises.
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