Overall assessment

• Author: Koldinská, Kristina
• Pages: 59-60

59

12 Overall assessment

The transposition problems mentioned in this report are listed below.

• The directives on equal access to employment are well implemented in the

legislation, but the practical application of the law remains a problem.

Discrimination in access to employment still o ccurs, but there are almost no cases :

women do not usually t ake cases to court, as it takes a l ong time, is costly an d the

outcome is by no means certain. The legislation covering leave and t ime off is

generous, which often means that women, as sole carers, are difficult to hire,

because th e employer presumes such an employee could b e pr oblematic because

of her caring responsibilities.

• Practical application of the law. Wom en often face discriminatory questions during

recruitment processes, as most women are carers an d their career is often

interrupted f or more than five years (due to very long parental leave, wh ich may

last until the child is three years old) . Women often do not obtain higher positions

in companies, as they are involved in caring for sick children or elderly parents.

They are believed not to be as loyal as employees as their male c ounterparts.

• Czechia is a country with one of the highest levels of pay inequalities between

women and men in the same working position and at the same workpl ace. While in

Western European countries the gender pay gap for the same job and for work of

the same value is 5 % , women in Czechia are paid on average 11 % less than

men, for the same job, with the same employer.

• Conditions for taking parental leave. Parental allowance, paid from state social

support, is paid monthly and parents can (under certain conditions) decide the

monthly level of the allowance. The t otal amount for each child is CZK 300 000

(approximately EUR 11 000). If children are born quickly one after the other, the

total amount of CZK 220 000 always appli es to the youngest child in the family, so

that in such a case, part of the total amount for the previous child gets lost, as the

previous parental allowance ends as soon as a new one is claimed.

• The waiting period for maternity benefit can cause problems for self-employed

women. As participation in the system is voluntary for self-employed people, many

of them prefer not to participate and not to pay contributio ns, especially when they

are starting their business. If a self-employed woman becomes pregnant shortly

after she starts paying contributions, she may face a difficult situation, as she will

not be entitled to the benefit, which is quite generous. Maternity benefit is provided

for 28 or 37 weeks, of which six weeks can be claimed before the estimated date of

delivery. Maternity allowanc e is paid to all insured self-employed p eople

(participation by self-employed people is voluntary).

• Difficulty with accepting a discrimination complaint and properl y shifting the burden

of proof.

• Scepticism as regards identifying discrimination in legal relationships, inclu ding

employment. There have only been a few discrimination cases and there a re very

few researchers (of whom just a handful of lawyers) who systematically tackle the

issue of discrimination. The most pressing issue in the Czech context is how

relatively good legislat ion can be enforced in practice, so that the law can serve to

improve gender equality.

The gender equality acqu is has been transposed in Czechia quite satisfactorily. However,

sometimes the impl ementation has not comp letely followed the spirit of the EU

directives. An example of this is the copy-an d-paste method which has been used in the

case of occupational pension schemes, where equal treatment is guaranteed in Sections

8 and 9 of the Anti-Discrimination Act. As there was (and still is) no occupational pension

pillar in the Czech pension system and, at the same time, it was requested that the

relevant p arts of th e E U law be implemented, some parts of the Recast Directive were

taken, translated and put into the Anti-Discrimination Act, which, from a systematic

point of view , does not seem to have been a very w ell thought-out step. Sections 8 and