Using the so-called embeddedness perspective, this article highlights the importance of context (time, space and institutions) for the direction of current research on the gender structure of entrepreneurship. The authors focus mainly on the effects of institutional context, namely tax and family policies, on business couples (copreneurs). The emphasis is on how these factors and formal institutions, which are reflected in informal gender norms, influence the work-life balance strategies of copreneurs. Based on a qualitative analysis of 24 in-depth interviews, the authors identify three strategies of achieving work-life balance and using welfare state measures: individualistic, adapting and innovating. Based on separate in-depth interviews with these business and life partners, we are also able to analyse the dynamics of communication between them. We draw attention to the finding that the strategies identified are not exclusive and may change during one’s life course and business career. Despite their differences, in some respects all these strategies preserve and reproduce gender inequality because it is embedded in the social context and institutional framework for economic activity and work-life balance in the Czech Republic., Marie Dlouhá, Nancy Jurik, Alena Křížková., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Using company-level data from the Czech Republic dating from the years 1998, 2002, and 2004, the article examines whether the introduction of legislative measures aimed at gender equality in connection with the country’s accession to the European Union had significant effects on gender wage gaps. The main conclusion of the analysis is that within-job wage discrimination is a significant factor in the Czech labour market and that there were no substantive changes during the period studied. Women doing the same job in the same company earn about 10 per cent less than men in the Czech Republic. Much of the gender wage gap can be explained by horizontal and vertical gender segregation of the labour market. The lowest gender wage gaps are found in firms and groups of employees that are representative of or have strong ties to the socialist past. The article concludes with speculations about whether motherhood and the double-burden of women, combined with the lack of respect and authority accorded the path dependent legal system, results in legislative changes having little impact on practices in Czech society and in persistence gender wage discrimination., Alena Křížková, Andrew M. Penner, Trond Petersen., 3 tabulky, and Obsahuje bibliografii
Ageing is process that is always gendered. Gender shapes the life biography and the norms and expectations that are imposed on individuals as they age. On the other hand, the experience of ageing affects the mechanism of creating and negotiating gender identity. This article critically discusses debates surrounding gender inequalities in old age. These debates often focus on older women as a group that is highly disadvantaged owing to the combined effects of sexism and ageism. This article critically discusses this “problem of old women” and shows alternative views of women’s experiences of ageing. It highlights the necessity to understand age and gender as two intertwining systems. It points out that ageing can in many respects create room for a redefinition of gender roles and expectation. The intersection of age and gender cannot be seen as a simple combination of two categories and must instead be viewed as a process that creates a specific social location, which can generate new forms of inequalities., Jaroslava Hasmanová Marhánková., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Academic excellence is allegedly a universal and gender neutral standard of merit. This article examines exactly what is constructed as academic excellence at the micro-level, how evaluators operationalize this construct in the criteria they apply in academic evaluation, and how gender inequalities are imbued in the construction and evaluation of excellence. We challenge the view that the academic world is governed by the normative principle of meritocracy in its allocation of rewards and resources. Based on an empirical study of professorial appointments in the Netherlands, we argue that academic excellence is an evasive social construct that is inherently gendered. We show how gender is practiced in the evaluation of professorial candidates, resulting in disadvantages for women and privileges for men that accumulate to produce substantial inequalities in the construction of excellence., Marieke van den Brink, Yvonne Benschop., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The article is based on research conducted with young children, and uses methods of data collection that are suitable and appropriate for children (focus groups, writing, and drawing). Theoretically grounded in a child-perspective research, we intend to contribute to the debate on the transition of gender order in the Czech environment. The text focuses particularly on the issue of gender roles both in the family of participating children and in their projections of roles of individual family members. An analysis of children’ views shows that they identify with the gender categories of “men” and “women” and construct these categories as opposite and firmly bounded. Despite the awareness of conflicts and problems that the unequal distribution of domestic tasks can bring, children mostly support the traditional division of roles and refer to them as normal, natural and corresponding to the physical characteristics of men and women. On the other hand, egalitarian attitudes (the view of division of roles as not depending on gender) are expressed by some children, more often by children from the urban school than from the village school., Lenka Slepičková, Michaela Kvapilová Bartošová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The paper discusses changes that have occurred in the Czech pension system since 1996 in terms of their gender impact. The pension system is considered in a broader socio-economic context. I take into account different working careers of men and women and their unequal share in unpaid care work. I analyse individual steps of the reform (the criteria for entitlement to a retirement pension, changes in the mechanism for calculating pension benefits, and the newly established private second pillar) and show the impact of these changes on women and men in retirement. I conclude that although the reform is presented as gender-neutral just because it maintains the same conditions for both sexes, it ultimately brings significant deterioration in women’s retirement situation as compared to men’s. An increase in the level of equivalence - and therefore the increasing dependence of the pension entitlement on previous income from paid work - means that, in the logic of the pension system, unpaid work associated particularly with childcare is valued less and less and gender inequalities in the labour market are reproduced., Radka Dudová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
March 1st was a unique occasion for meeting a Czech member of the European Parliament, Dr. Vladimír Špidla, and listening to his speech and opinions on globalization and related problems. The discussion which followed showed that the most biting problems are politics, culture and socio-economic aspects of globalization. and Připravil Marek Hrubec.