Diversity of childcare attitudes and parenting practices: Their sources and outcomes

This project systematically explores a variation in attitudes to childcare and parental practices in the Czech Republic, with a comparative perspective. In contemporary developed societies, an ‘intensive parenting’ model, which places high demands on parents’ time and financial resources and puts a strong emphasis on the child´s development and education, has become dominant. This project focus on two research areas: (1) diversity of attitudes to childcare and (2) the relationship between childcare normative beliefs, socioeconomic differences, and parenting practices. This project applies a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative analysis will use data from Czech Household Panel Survey and from comparative large-scale surveys (EVS, ESS), and the qualitative research will identify manifestations and dimensions of intensive parenting and explore current changes to parenting practices. The combination of methodological approaches will provide a more complex understanding of attitudes to childcare and parenting practices and their consequences for the reproduction of social inequalities.