Cash for Care as Special Money: The Meaning and Uses of the Care Allowance in Close Relationships in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

Investigating what happens when money in the form of a cash-for-care benefit enters family relationships, this article examines long-term family care in the Czech Republic where a “care allowance” was introduced in 2007. It compares two qualitative studies: one of adult children providing care to their parents and the other of mothers caring for a disabled child; in both cases, the adults are entitled to the benefit. The studies used narrative and in-depth interviews with forty-eight informal caregivers. Daughters providing care mostly earmarked the allowance as their parent’s money or did not claim it at all, while sons viewed it as a contribution to pay for care services. Mothers interpreted it as compensation for their caring work. The different practices of earmarking special monies affirmed and maintained gendered normative expectations, thus explaining why the introduction of the benefit did not lead to the outcomes expected by policymakers.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The introduction of a care allowance in the Czech Republic did not have the expected outcomes.

• The use of allowance money varied in cases of caring for a parent or child with disability.

• Gendered norms of care determined how the money was used.

• The most significant of these norms was that care should be provided personally and by women.

• The discretionary use of allowance money did not serve to improve caregivers’ economic situations.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiving
• welfare measures
• unpaid work
• family

JEL Codes:

• D60
• I38

Notes

1 The average salary in 2017 was the equivalent of $1,405 USD, and the minimum wage was equivalent to $581 USD per month. In 2019, the allowance was further increased.

2 Data from the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, available at: https://www.mpsv.cz/cs/31567.

3 Even though the children are not retired, the disability and survivors payments are part of the contributory pension system and are still referred to by the Czech word “důchod” that literally means pension. The adults who became disabled in childhood are entitled to this disability payment/benefit even if they were not insured (did not work at all), upon the condition of their Czech citizenship. The care allowance is, in turn, a non-contributory social assistance benefit.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Czech Science Foundation [grant number 15-07898S]; and the project DAISIE (Dynamics of Accumulated Inequality for Seniors in Employment; nr. 462-16-110) - NORFACE DIAL Programme.

Notes on contributors

Radka Dudová

Radka Dudová is an expert in the area of analysis of public policies and institutions, childcare and eldercare, and current changes in the labor market. Since 2001, she has worked as a researcher in the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. From 2008–10, she worked as Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Sciences, FSW, Leiden University. She studied sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University and Université Paris 5 René Descartes.