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The number of children in shared custody has been growing slowly in the CR. Today shared custody presents about 8 % of divorce cases with dependent children decided by courts. Despite this trend, there is a lack of research on how shared custody is practiced and experienced by Czech parents. The aim of this paper is to partially fill this gap. In the paper I ask how shared custody is related to the disruption of traditional gender ideology and performance of paternal and maternal roles and gender inequalities between partners. The analysis is based on 13 in-depth interviews with couples (mothers and fathers separately) who have shared custody. The analysis indicated that even if shared custody may be considered to be a tool for disrupting gender stereotypes and gender inequality between parents, it proved to be associated both with the confirmation and disruption of gender stereotypes associated with fatherhood and motherhood. While certain aspects of the practices and culture of shared custody are associated with “undoing gender”(especially regarding fatherhood), in other aspects it enhances and reproduces the gender power inequality between ex-partners and traditional expectations associated with parental roles.

The dissertation focuses on the exploration of the phenomenon of sexual harassment in Czech higher education environment, particularly on harassment of students by teachers. The sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome, inappropriate and offensive behavior that constitutes an abuse of power based on gender and formal structure. It comprises both less explicit forms of gender harassment (known as the "hostile environment") and more explicit forms of sexual (referred in the legislation as "quid pro quo"). The dissertation is based on a study of selected faculty of Prague university conducted in the turn of 2008 and 2009. It took a mixed research design combining quantitative questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with students. The dissertation focuses on three main realms: i) students experience of sexual harassment, ii) the definition and perception of sexual harassment, and iii) coping strategies and solutions of sexual harassment. Quantitative survey showed that 67 % of respondents on the selected faculty have encountered some form of harassment during their studies. Students have mostly experienced the less explicit forms, i.e. gender harassment, however the more explicit forms of harassment, e.g. unwelcome sexual attention or unwanted physical contact, were no exception. Despite the high...

The paper focus on two main questions: (i) who is the initiator of divorces and what socio ‑demographic and life‑cycle characteristics determine whether the man or the woman files for a divorce; and (ii) what are the individual reasons and motives that lead to the breakup of marriages and consensual unions and what socio ‑demographic characteristics (e.g. education, number of children, age, etc.) influence people’s perceptions of these reasons? The analysis is based on two data sources: the database of divorces for the year 2008 registered by the Czech Statistical Office and the quantitative survey ‘Partnership’ conducted in 2009, which included a representative sample of 1086 respondents. The author concludes that the fact of who initiates divorce is closely related to the individual’s potential chances or risks of divorce. Regarding the subjective reasons of partnership breakup, the data showed a clear tendency for younger people, childless couples and people in consensual unions to cite reasons closely related to the quality of a relationship and emotional satisfaction arising from the relationship. In contrast, long ‑term partnerships, marriages or partnerships with children break up more often for reasons of infidelity, alcoholism or violence.

Despite the fact that the problem of sexual harassment at universities has been broadly explored in western and mainly American sociology since the mid-1970s, the first sociological survey to focus on this topic in the Czech Republic was conducted in late 2008 and early 2009. This quantitative survey covered 700 students and was carried out at a faculty of a university in Prague. The paper presents the main findings from this survey, such as the student’s experiences with sexual harassment from their teachers and their attitudes towards sexual harassment. The author found that the prevalence of sexual harassment in the particular faculty was relatively high and that students are extremely tolerant of ‘soft’ forms of harassment, especially gender harassment.

In this article the authors map the theoretical arguments on the gender dimension of the welfare state. They propose three integral dimensions of conceptualising the exercise of parenthood in Czech society in relation to gender equality in the labour market that co-determine the position of parents in the labour market. The authors analyse these dimensions using data from two representative sociological surveys. 1) The right to be a parent (to care for one’s child) and the right to work: the measures provided in the Czech welfare state are based on the myth that there are two separate worlds of work and care in conformity with the gender principle, even though there are no significant differences between Czech men and women in terms of the value of work in their lives. 2) Equality or non-discrimination in parenthood: the right to work of mothers of young children is violated in the context of generally increasing gender inequalities in the labour market. 3) The opportunity to achieve a work/life balance: in Czech society flexible forms of employment are uncommon, working hours tend to have a fi xed start and finish, or there is negative flexibility, which renders a work/life balance impossible. The way in which state policy defi nes and employers apply the conditions of parenthood in relation to the labour market and in the context of the gender structure of Czech society makes parenthood a significant handicap for the social inclusion of women who are mothers of young children in the Czech Republic.

The thesis deals with relationships between the labour market and the private, family and partnership life in the contemporary Czech society. The Czech Republic has undergone many changes since the year 1989. Labour market and family and private life are the domains that have been substantially affected be these changes. Attention is focused on the question how working people perceive the influence of the working life on their private and family life under new conditions existing on the labour market (such as increasing job mobility, working-hour flexibility, new ways of the work organisation, and rising unemployment). Another topics discussed in this work are the ways in which people solve questions o f a coordination of two working careers within a couple and the partnership life in a context of professional lives of partners. A comparison of the level of conflict experienced between the working and private life in several European countries is also performed. The present work is based on a quantitative analysis of the two data sources. The first part is based on the data collected in a study involving 5510 respondents, which was done in the Czech Republic in the year 2005. The second part is based on the European Social Survey (ESS) data collected in the years 2004 and 2005. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This diploma thesis is focused on the changes of intimacy between two generations of men and women that were born between 1960 - 1965 and 1985 - 1990. The work pays attention to the second demographic transition and distinct changes in society after the year 1989, and its influence on partnership in the Czech Republic. The main focus is on the transformation of timing of particular life transitions that are postponed to the higher age, changes of life course, kinds of partnership, circumstance of beginning in the new partnership, influence of new technologies and the development of health care (in term of reproduction) to the private life. This work is also about life plans, values and priorities and its influence on partner-biography of individuals. This thesis uses qualitative methodology based on biographic interviews with 16 men and women from aforesaid generations.

This thesis deals with the topic of work-life balance in narrations of Ukrainian female migrants in the Czech Republic. Female migrants are in a difficult situation while managing these two spheres of their lives, because they are situated in an unknown milieu and lack family environment and social ties. Based on fourteen in-depth interviews I analyze how these women deal with this situation and how they feel about it. The research shows that the women's work trajectories develop in accordance with their reasons to migrate and their family situation. The family situation especially their motherhood seems to be crucial in choosing the work-life balance strategies. Thus, in my analysis I show how these strategies differs among women who brought their children with them to the Czech republic, those who brought them later, those who left them at Ukraine and those who gave birth to their first children in the Czech Republic. The main attention is paid to female migrants whose children joint them later as they go through the most distinct changes in managing their work-life balance. In my analysis I identified some problems which Ukrainian migrants have to face considering reconciliation of their work and personal life. The most crucial one is the absence of the extended family and its help with...

This bachelor thesis focuses on the issue of marriage, or more specifically, on the process of its formation or, in other words, mate selection. The author compares economic (G. S. Becker) and sociological (V. K. Oppenheimer) theory of the marriage market, including assortative mating. The subject of the work is to compare economic and sociological view of the issue of mate selection in an aim to discover common and different elements in the two scientific disciplines as regards the matter. The author works with four comparison criteria. The first one gives a general overview of the marriage market and describes how it functions, the second one shows the relationship between the marriage and job markets, the third is about assortative mating and the fourth one describes and explains changes in marriage behaviour in the second half of the twentieth century. Based on this, the author deems the sociological approach to be more adequate and suitable for investigating such a complex process as mate selection.

Thesis "Motherhood during university studies" deals with the the topic of motherhood among undergraduate women, whose attitude towards having children whilst studying differs from that of their schoolmates. The author asks questions about how these women interpret the fact that they have children during their university studies and how they harmonize their studies with childcare. She did a qualitative research among undergraduate women who had a baby during their studies. In the theoretical part, the author deals with current trends in demographic behaviour, with structural and institutional conditions connected with parenthood and cultural trends of parenthood in Czech Republic. Because of the research, the author concludes that within undergraduate women there is a group of students that plan to have a baby during their studies because they are against the majority age norms of having babies at the age of thirty. They can harmonize studies with childcare because of the support of their families. If these women are motivated to finish their studies, they can develop many strategies to accomplish it.

Travesti show - in other words men's dressing as women (especially famous singers) in order to create a parody - has become a legitimate part of the Czech cultural events for the last twenty years. Moreover, in comparison with a foreign production of that kind it is very specific as regards terminology and content. Although travesti show theme has penetrated into the Czech academic ground too, it is still understood only from the perspective of gender performativity and is focused on performers themselves. On the contrary, this paper tries to grasp spectators' perspectives regarding not only the audience perception of the performers, but also a wide range of spectators' characteristics related to their general degree of tolerance towards gender roles in the society as well as LGBT issues in comparison with common population.

The master thesis "Sexual harassment in the Czech university environment from the female students' perspective- qualitative probe" focuses on how students perceive sexual and gender harassment and what their experiences with it are at the Czech universities. The theoretical part contains explanations of important terms, discusses definitions of sexual harassment, further considers power topics related to sexual harassment, points to who is harassed and why and finally, shows specialities of the university environment including prevention of sexual harassment. The empirical part introduces qualitative research- semi-structured interviews about sexual harassment with 18 female students of Czech universities. It interprets several important topics, in particular: definitions of sexual and gender harassment, experiences with it and reactions to it, power, fear, relations between teachers and students, alcohol, (non)talking about sexual harassment etc.