This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ‘vårdnadsbidraget’. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model. From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate – is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ‘vårdnadsbidraget’? The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics. Even though the opponents of the reform are critical to the nuclear family as a ideal, their strife for gender equality contributes to reproduce the heterosexual nuclear family as the family norm.

The main focus of this thesis is the child support grant, as part of a broader social security system, in post-apartheid South Africa. Since the end of apartheid of 1994, the new South African government has sought to redress the racial imbalances and inequalities of the past by engaging in measures of redistribution. Central to this pursuit of redistribution has been a restructured system of social grants, of which the child support grant is the most significant. However, the post-apartheid government has adopted a largely neo-liberal macro-economic strategy such that social inequality and endemic poverty remain pervasive particularly amongst the African population, which includes the recipients of the child support grants. In adopting a sustainable livelihoods framework as the main theoretical perspective, the thesis seeks to understand the livelihoods of child support grant mothers in the face of conditions of extreme poverty. It does this through a localised study of twenty child grant mothers in Sinathingi Township in KwaZulu-Natal Province. In examining the livelihoods of these child-grant mothers, the thesis brings to the fore that mothers and their children do not exist as autonomous living units but are embedded in a broader set of social relations, including intra-household relations and relations with the fathers of the grant-children. It also demonstrates that child-grant mothers are not simply victims of structures of poverty in contemporary South Africa, but actively construct their livelihoods through a range of activities and strategies which show perseverance and ingenuity.

The thesis describes the historical evolution of the EU social policy, clarifies the concept of the European social model and deals with characteristics of the basic models of the European social policy. The essential part of the thesis is devoted to the comparison of the social systems in Germany and Sweden from the point of view of the amount of taxes and social contributions, the structure of receipts and expenditure on social policy, the systems of old age pension schemes, the family policy and the unemployment benefit. The comparison shows some typical elements of the social state model that these two countries represent. The attention is also devoted to the contemporary challenges which the European social model has to face, especially the demographic development and aspects of globalization. The attitude and responses of the European Union to these challenges are also mentioned here.

The thesis called "The impact of family policy on labour market efficiency" deals with the relation between family policy and the labour market, specifically with the economic gender inequality and the impact of parenthood on the economic status of families. While analyzing this relation it describes the historical development and the current situation of the labour market in the Czech Republic, with specific attention dedicated to the position of women and the possibilities of harmonizing work and motherhood. The situation in the Czech Republic is not only compared to the Visegrad countries and Germany, but general trends in other EU and OECD countries as well. The thesis clarifies the development of family policy in the Czech Republic and describes the current family-specific policy measures. It looks closely at the area of childcare services, which has strong impact on the position of parents, specifically mothers, in the labour market. In the last part of the thesis, the author evaluates the currently proposed and discussed family policy changes based on the acquired information, and analyses them as far as their impact and relation to the labour market are concerned. The author then provides additional suggestions stemming from both the acquired information and his own experience.

Fertility postponement in the Czech republic and selected European countries in the period 1990−2015 Abstract We have been able to observe the trend of shifting of maternity to later periods of life in European countries since the second half of the 20th century. However crucial for this thesis is to determine whether there have been disparity in delaying of maternity between selected Eastern European (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland) and Western European (Germany and Austria) countries since 1990 till present. The goal of this work is to find the relationship among setting of family policies, fertility rate of older women and respondents' views. In the first part of this thesis are outlined basic theories explaining postponing of maternity. There are also listed consequences related to the late maternity. The thesis touches a topic of family policies which influence the phenomenon of late maternity. It presents several fundamental tools of family policies and compares them among selected countries. The second part focuses on a description of demographic indicators that demonstrate the shift in timing of maternity. The main analysis in this thesis is a logistic regression, which explains respondent's views on issues related to a harmonization of family and employment by selected explanatory variables from...

This thesis discusses two family policy models in the two selected Central European countries; the Czech Republic and Austria. The aim is to carry out a comparative analysis of these measures of family policy, which relates to aid reconciliation of family and professional life for families with children. Within this study of individual level measures of family policies in the selected countries, first the measures involving the formation of family and work roles in family life will be explored, followed by the possibility of interaction of the two family policies. The integral parts of the analysis will asses these measures from a gender perspective. The result of this work is a detailed comparison of the components of family policy, which affect the reconciliation of family and professional lives of families with child/children, including evaluation of the effectiveness of individual measures in the two selected countries. Key words: balancing work and family, family policy, comparative analysis, gender, family, maternity / parental leave, the labor market, institutional care for children

The public policy scholarship says that media interract with the policy process in multiple ways. First of all, they offer various policy preferences. At the same time, they attach meanings to different policy events. This matters when it comes to the audience and its perception of chosen public issues. The media might also become an active participant in the policy debate and transmit their policy beliefs and policy preferences within this debate. The Narrative Policy framework brings these findings together with focus on the important role of policy narratives in the policy process. This master's thesis focuses on the case of family policy measurement adaptation in the Czech republic. The focus lies particularly on the government bill that has increased the parental allowance in 2019. This change has provoked a significant interest of the public and of the media, which were making their statements. The aim of this paper is to explore the form and content of the policy narrative and to say whether the media accounts have actively participated in the policy debates to possibly influence the policy outcome.

The thesis deals with the harmonization of family and work roles of workers without the possibility of working from home during the so-called first wave of the coronavirus crisis in 2020. The goal of this thesis is to describe the harmonization possibilities of family and the work roles in the Czech Republic. Another goal of this thesis is to find out what circumstances influenced the parents without the possibility of working from home to stay at work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last but not least, the goal was set to map the harmonization of the family and of the work roles of the parents without the possibility of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic. The theoretical basis of the thesis is the concept of family-work conflict in conjunction with the concept of work-life balance. These theoretical aspects were conceptualized with the issue of Covid-19, labor market conditions and the tools that make it easier to match the parental and the work roles in the Czech Republic. The research work works with primary and secondary data. The primary data was obtained through the semi-structured interviews with the affected individuals (the parents who take care of a child under the age of 10 and at the same time working in a position without the possibility of working from...

English Summary: The thesis "The State Support for Families in the Social Protection System - the Comparison of the Current Situation in the Czech and Slovak Republics" focuses on the comparison of the current direct financial aid to families with young children. The attention was paid to the social situations associated with pregnancy, motherhood and parenting, as the birth of a child means economic and social consequences for most families, especially the increased financial costs connected with education and child care and parenting and the negative impact of motherhood on employment of the women with young children. The theoretical part defines the principles, objectives and models of family policies and their ability to deal with social events of the families with children. In the following part the quick analysis of the participants was carried out in order to assess their attitudes and interests as for the family policy. The basic objectives and principles of the family policy in both reference countries are articulated explicitly in the national family policy concepts and are focused on the socio-economic situation of the families and on the reconciliation of family and working obligations. As well as the attention of political parties devoted to the family policy focuses in particular on the...

Diploma thesis "Civil Society Organizations supporting employment of parents in Prague and Central Bohemian Region (2010 - 2012)" deals with the mapping of supply of civil society organizations in the area of Prague and Central Bohemia in the years 2010 - 2012, which aim to promote employment of parents. In the empirical research are included programs of personal and professional development of clients, help with their orientation in the labour market, advice on a finding new work (including setting up own business) and programs that are focused on working with employers and reconciling family and working life. In view of the fact that these organizations offers, of course, to some extent dependent on the characteristics of the Czech Republic, family and employment policies of the state and the European Union, the thesis contains also a summary of key facts that are related to this area. In conclusion, this thesis contains not only an analysis of research outputs, but as well as a draft recommendations, which could lead to improvement of the situation.