One-half of parents do not consider long-term impacts on their careers when planning child care arrangements. More than half of employers support parents in returning to work quickly and balancing work and family 

Time spent away from work for maternity or parental leave significantly affects parents’ professional and career paths. Over three-quarters of parents (77%) and two-thirds of employers (66%) believe that in the Czech Republic parenthood still negatively impacts women’s careers over the course of their lives. Almost one-half of parents (48%) were not contacted by their employers with any offer of cooperation or support during maternity or parental leave and roughly the same percentage of parents took parental leave of three or more years. 

Financial reasons have the greatest influence on decisions about which of the parents – the mother or the father – should take parental leave (43%), and for how long (according to long-term statistics it is more often women – mothers in the Czech Republic). Employers have the same opinion. Almost 9 out of 10 employers (87%) believe that financial reasons play the greatest role in parents’ decisions.

Social norms, i.e. the opinion that women should stay home and care for children and men should support the family financially, play a key role in 30% of parental decisions about child care arrangements. This is confirmed by the experience of more than half of employers (53%). Approximately one-half of parents (51%) stated that they did not consider financial or career impacts at all when making decisions about parental leave and its duration. In contrast, 47% of parents seriously consider the long-term impacts of parental and maternity leave on their finances and careers when planning parenthood. There is a growing number of parents who are considering or taking shorter parental leave. That was demonstrated by the results of a survey conducted by the Byznys pro společnost alliance and presented at the Mothers and Fathers Welcome conference. 

The survey also looked at how women are supported to take shorter maternity or parental leave and at work arrangements during “parenting breaks”. “The current crisis is showing that it’s not enough to just talk about opening the labour market to people with young children. Mothers are still pushed to the back burner in their careers and it’s the same with fathers in terms of parenting. But it is society as a whole that loses out in the end”, said Markéta Pekarová Adamová, member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament and Chair of the TOP 09 political party, about the survey results. 

Conditions set by the employer can support parents who are considering the economic and career-related impacts of parenthood in their decision-making. 23% of parents and 48% of employers consider conditions set by the employer as an important factor in parents’ decisions about how long to stay on parental leave. Almost one-half of parents (48%), however, unfortunately confirmed that when they were planning to take maternity or parental leave, their employer did not offer any support or work arrangements for the period of parental leave.

When returning to work after the normal duration of parental leave, i.e. after three or more years, only one-quarter of parents received an offer of support from their employer to ease their return to work; most often it was flexible work arrangements (24%). Setting conditions for parents can break down some stereotypes. "Taking care of our employees who are parents so that they can spend more time with their families results in greater job satisfaction”, said Hana Martinkovičová from Česká spořitelna, regional HR Business partner, South Moravia.

14% of employees who are parents feel that the level of state support in preparing and returning to work is low. Employers perceive the low level of support even more emphatically (31%).

What do employers have to say about the issue?

More than one-third of employers (34%) consider long parental leave to be a problem. Employers’ view of the low rate of employees returning after parental leave is different: more than two-fifths of employers (44%) consider it a problem, and almost three-fifths of employers (58%) support their employees in making their parental leave shorter than the typical three years.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are facing entirely new challenges in terms of balancing professional and personal lives.

McDonald´s spol. s r.o., a signatory of the Diversity Charter, employs dozens of parents. “We would be happy to share our experience in employing parents as well as communication with employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a huge challenge for us and we have gleaned many insights from the situation about what to focus on in the future,” said Rastislav Tesár, Senior HR & Training manager, on behalf of McDonald’s.

Another area that still poses a challenge to families in the Czech Republic is the traditional view of parenthood and gender roles. According to statistics, 11.5% of women and 6.7% of men in the Czech Republic are not heterosexual. Many of them strive to become mothers and fathers too. As a part of the conference, Vodafone CZ and Provident Financial presented good practice and benefits from their pro-family policies in support of “rainbow” parents.

This year once again, one of the conference topics focused on single parents, who often face prejudice in their everyday lives and also find it very difficult to balance work and child care; moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them are experiencing extremely serious personal and financial crises. Kooperativa Foundation in collaboration with the Byznys pro společnost alliance informed the audience about the outputs of their joint project in support of single parents: https://byznysprospolecnost.cz/51-rodicu-samozivitelu-se-setkava-v-praci-s-predsudky/

IKEA, another participant in the panel on single parents, shared its good practice in promoting diversity and inclusion of all parent groups, including single parents. Nora Fridrichová, organizer of single parent support, presented her experience from collaborating with corporations and from fundraising events in support of single parents.

About the survey:

The Byznys pro společnost alliance carried out the survey in February and March 2020, addressing in total 314 parents across the Czech Republic. 90% of the respondents were women (mothers or female caregivers) and 10% were fathers. The vast majority of parents care for one (36%) or two children (46%), adding up to over four-fifths of the respondents (82%). Less than one-fifth of the respondents care for three or more children (18%).  In terms of education level, the highest proportion were university graduates (72% of all parent-respondents) and secondary school graduates with school-leaving exams, who represented nearly one-quarter of the respondents (24%). The education level of 4% of parents was vocational training or elementary education.  Out of the total number of responding parents, over two-thirds (67%) live in municipalities with a population of 50,000+. Approximately 3 out of 10 parents live in towns with a population under 15,000 (28%). Less than a tenth live in municipalities with a population under 1,000.

A similar survey took place among employers in February and March 2020, involving in total 78 respondents (employers) across the Czech Republic. All but two administrative regions of the Czech Republic were represented. The majority of employers were based in Prague, representing over one-half of the respondents (56%). The next most heavily represented regions were Moravia-Silesia, Ústí nad Labem and South Moravia. In terms of employer size, or rather the number of employees, the sample featured a majority of employers with 250+ employees, representing roughly one-half of all respondents (51%). Correspondingly to the size of the business, there were fewer employers in the smaller company categories. Businesses employing 51–249 people and 11–50 people represented 18% of the respondents. Employers with 10 employees or less comprised approximately one-tenth of the sample (12%).

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Strategic updates from the Czech Diversity Charter

The Czech Diversity Charter has so far been signed by more than 80 signatories and more companies have now joined. Dentons Europe CS LLP, Provident Financial, ŠKODA AUTO and Tesco Stores ČR became the golden signatories. Among others, Česká podnikatelská pojišťovna a.s., Vienna Insurance Group, EATON Elektronika, Prague Airport, MONETA Money Bank and Resource Solutions also joined the Charter.

The Diversity Charter is a platform that offers truly practical practices and support to companies in the areas of diversity, inclusion and flexibility. We would like to welcome other signatories. Another opportunity for the ceremonial accession of new signatories will be this autumn in the Parliament of the Czech Republic.