Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2023, 24 (1): 11-35 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2023.003  

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and reinforced the structural crisis in paid and unpaid care work. On the one hand, pandemic-related closures of schools and childcare facilities increased the fragility of unpaid care arrangements, which are mainly organised by women. On the other hand, high infection and hospitalisation rates exacerbated the difficult working conditions in health-care professions, ranging from low wages and long working hours to high levels of mental and physical stress. Drawing on interviews conducted in an ongoing project in the German and Austrian health-care sector, this article investigates, from a gender perspective, how employees...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2023, 24 (1): 36-61 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2023.001  

The pandemic highlighted the importance of both formal and informal care and magnified gender inequalities in this area. Women were more represented in care-related frontline professions (including nurses), but they were also more often responsible for providing childcare when institutions (especially schools and nurseries) were closed. This paper builds on criticism aimed at the separate study of formal and informal care and explores the interconnections between the two in the case of Czech nurses with young children, who during the pandemic experienced increased demands in both formal and informal care. We are interested in how they experienced these...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2023, 24 (1): 62-86 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2023.008  

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to the organisation of work and practices of care. Lockdown, the introduction of remote working in many sectors, home-schooling, and social isolation required the adoption of new strategies and solutions, resulting in the increased involvement of mothers in caring activities and the reinforcement of the cultural normativity of family. Yet some studies suggest that the share of fathers in childcare has also increased. Based on semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted as part of the ‘Men in Care’ (MiC) project with men working in international corporations (17) and their partners (7), we...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2023, 24 (1): 88-113 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2023.002  

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the experiences of non-infected pregnant women in Serbia during the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of emergency by applying a qualitative research method. The present analysis examines four aspects of being pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of emergency: (a) pregnant women’s health and health care; (b) preparation for childbirth and the arrival of a new family member; (c) working while pregnant during the pandemic; and (d) the family atmosphere and family practices. The results show that the coronavirus pandemic affected pregnant women both psychologically and socially. The following...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2023, 24 (1): 114-134 | DOI: 10.13060/gav.2023.007  

Various research studies suggest that women and other vulnerable groups are the ones who were impacted most and who continue to suffer from the economic and social effects of the pandemic. However, these groups have often been omitted from the measures mitigating the pandemic impact due to their invisibility in the policy-knowledge nexus. This article draws on the findings from the international RESISTIRÉ research project, which focuses on how COVID-19 policies impacted gendered inequalities in Europe. Building on feminist institutionalism and an intersectional approach, we contribute to the debate on how existent gender regimes have shaped anti-pandemic...