Family First? Discourses and Practices of Elderly Care in the Czech Republic

Demographic transformations taking currently place in European societies including the Czech Republic lead to a deficit of available care for the elderly. Still, the care for elderly people is currently provided mainly in the informal sector, more often by women than men. Persons performing day-to-day care have to deal with competing obligations and are running a greater risk of poverty. The expectations placed on the potential care-givers by different normative systems are often contradictory. The aim of the paper is to reveal how the issue of elderly care is framed in the public and political debates in the CR; what the experiences that constitute caregiving of Czech women for their elderly family members are; and how the caregivers´ experiences, interpretations and their practical models of care interact with the political claims and discursive framings of public actors. The paper combines the methodology of political discourse analysis and the narrative sociological approach, using the technique of biographic interviews with people providing informal care to their elderly parents. The analysis reveals the contradictory nature of the public discourse framings and expectations, putting accent on the family responsibility in elderly care, and the everyday experiences of women and men providing care in the family (and the costs and barriers they face).