Abstract
The introductory part of the chapter summarizes recent developments and current situation in the Czech Republic regarding family, employment, labour market, welfare state regime and gender roles in relation to work. The subsequent part provides basic characteristics of the research sample employed in the qualitative research of three generations performed in the Czech Republic. The study found clearly observable differences in attitudes, values and resources between those who were employed, self-employed or worked in a family business on one hand, and those who experienced long-term periods of unemployment on the other. As opposed to the unemployed respondents, those with a steady job expressed in interviews a proactive attitude towards work and life, willingness to take a risk and self-reflection. They valued self-direction, self-development and achievement and were notably more ambitious than the unemployed respondents, whose value orientation distinctively emphasized family as a central issue of their life. Those who were employed, self-employed or worked in a family business also displayed greater stocks of social capital (networks of acquaintances and relatives capable of providing job opportunities). Their cultural capital also appeared as more relevant and adapted to current labour markets, as their upbringing led to more flexibility in learning new skills. The transmission of cultural and social capital from one generation to another was clearly observable in the three generations of respondents and appeared to be bolstered by specific leisure activities that parents and children engaged in together and activities that children did outside their family circle, such as team sports.
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- 1.
The respondents who fulfilled the recruitment criteria were identified during the quantitative data collection and were asked if they were willing to participate in semi-structured biographical interviews.
- 2.
For recent developments regarding the implementation of employment services in the EU context see e.g. Tosun (2017).
- 3.
While the results of the presented analysis clearly support the idea that habitus plays a key role in one’s position on the labour market, the data did not allow for assessment of some other specific possible determinants of the habitus that may be at play, such as e.g. biological predispositions, erotic capital as theorized by Hakim (2010), physical capital as theorized by Shilling (2004), etc.
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Pauknerová, D., Chytková, Z., Hanzlík, J. (2021). Looking Beyond the Family Nest: Self-Sufficiency of Young Adults and Intergenerational Transmission of Values and Resources in Czech Republic. In: Tosun, J., Pauknerová, D., Kittel, B. (eds) Intergenerational Transmission and Economic Self-Sufficiency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17498-9_14
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