As Pavla Novakova unruffles her satin dress in the teacher’s lounge, she smiles saying how proud she is that her husband is the only one within her friend group who does the dishes, puts the kids to sleep, and even stays at home some days if the children are sick. According to Novakova, this is not a usual occurrence in many Czech Republic households.

“He is a minority, a great exception. People don't even believe me sometimes when I speak about it,” she said.

Novakova works at the Prague University of Business and Economics teaching kids English every weekday. However, this does not mean that her weekends are a relaxing few days; Pavla takes care of her two children (4 year-old and 12 year-old), and although he helps with household chores, Pavla believes that it is only normal to tend to her husband like one of her own children.

“He had a long day too, it is only normal to want to give him care,” she said.

The Czech Republic is at the bottom of the inequality ladder for the percentage of men vs. women who participate in housework and childcare activities. Although the country has increased by 6 points since 2020, the Czech Republic's ranking was dead last in 2023 with 62.8% of men helping with these chores. This ranking was followed by Lithuania's numbers which hold second 8 points higher than the Czech Republic, according to a 2023 study from the European Institute for Gender Equality. 

Although this may seem surprising to some countries such as Sweden or Finland, whose housework is almost evenly distributed between two parents, the Czech Republic has lived like this for decades.

During the communist era of the Czech Republic, the government made an effort to increase women’s emancipation. They did this mostly to create a larger labor force to produce more goods. To get more women to work, the government implemented new equal rights such as legalizing abortion and creating maternity and childcare benefits. This switch, however, made the after-workday work more tiresome for mothers.

Katerina Kebza, the academic manager at the Institute for Study Abroad in Prague says that under communism the people agreed that the country had emancipation and therefore there was equality for all. 

“But then the women would come home and there would still be the second shift,” Kebza said.

The second shift is a term used to refer to the household and childcare duties of parents that follow after a day's work in the office. Although the term includes both mother and father, this job usually falls on the back of the mother, especially in the Czech Republic. Kebza admits that this was prevalent within her household growing up.

“Naturally, I fell into the same thing,” she said.

While women do most of the housework all while maintaining full-time jobs, the pay gap between men and women remains a considerable size. However, many women reject the “victim status” Western feminism places on them due to Czech women still being strong and capable women, according to the Czech Center Museum Houston.

Marketa Starvoca, a gender professor at the CIEE study center teaches her class about the gender pay gap within the Czech Republic (about a 20% difference between men’s and women’s wages, according to a Borgen Project article). She compares the gap to other countries, showing that it is one of the largest in Europe. She also presents statistical data showing that Europe in general will most likely close the gender gap in 2090, almost a decade from now.

Not only are women in the Czech Republic discriminated against through their wages, but they are also treated unfairly with the positions they can obtain within the workplace.

Halka Capkova is a teacher at the University of Economics Prague. She explains that during her time in the workplace, she has come to realize that women usually do not move high up within their corporate positions. This is because many men in leading positions assume that they will leave their job in the near or late future to care for a newborn, especially if the worker is a young woman. This causes the male workers to take the part of most managers and directors, leaving the lower positions to the women of the office.

According to an Ombudsman from Norway Grants, an unfair treatment investigation organization, a survey shows that almost two-thirds of women in the Czech Republic have been asked questions about their family life in a job interview.  After interviews, there was a common feeling among interviewees that they were not hired for the job due to answers to questions about having children or not.

Capkova explains the theories many job recruiters have. She says it's not only that the woman will leave after some time, “but then she also comes back and has two screaming kids at home who are sick very often and she will have to stay at home again.”

Although housework and childcare rights are moving at a slow pace in the Czech Republic, Czechia has increased its gender inequality gap by 2.3 points since last year according to a 2023 study. Researchers believe this is due to the recent improvements for Czech citizens in the domain of money (+5.6 points) and knowledge (+4.4 points).

Czechia's Gender Equality Index score has risen to 57.9 out of 100 in recent years. However, the country continues to remain significantly lower than the EU average which is 70.2 out of 100, according to the European Institute of Gender Equality. While some find this to be traditional and as it should be, many continue to strive for equal rights for women at home and in the workplace.

“It’s amazing to see more and more women come together to fight for what should be equally ours,” Capkova said.