The amended Employment Code extended the ability to take paternity leave from a lone father caring for a child to all men irrespective their marital status. This amendment made men and women formally equal in respect to the care for a child from birth to the age of three. Despite this, there was only a very small percentage of respondents (11%) who in the April CPOR census that stated that they new a man who was currently on paternity leave.

According to the answers provided, Czechs most often look after the household together, as stated by three fifths of men and almost a half of women. Only a small proportion of men said that most care for the household was placed on them. A quarter of men admitted that their partners do the most in looking after the household, however a third of women believe that they themselves do the most in looking after the household.

35.4 % of respondent according to their own words experienced discrimination at work. The most frequent reasons for the feeling of being disadvantaged were age (47.2 percentage points out of one hundred), education (38.6 percentage points out of one hundred) and sex (34.5 percentage points out of one hundred). Health condition was quoted as the reason for discrimination by less than 21 respondents out of a hundred and nationality or race by 2 respondents out of a hundred.

The respondents consider their family environment to be the most important part of their lives: the family was rated as very important by 83 %, the children by 72 % and the partner by 71 % of citizens. Parents are very important for about two thirds of respondents (68 %). For most of the people, work represents a high value - for 54 % of people it is very important, for 31 % quite important. Similarly but a little less, respondents value friends - for 51 % of respondents friends play an important role, for 40 % quite an important role in their lives.

With the upcoming date of the referendum on the entry of the CZ to the EU, we have been monitoring flows between the group of those that claim they will "definitely" participate and those that are not completely certain about their participation and chose the answer option "will more likely participate in the referendum on the entry of the CZ to the EU”. However, the number of those that say they will participate in the referendum has not changed much since the end of last year and in April 78 % of respondents declared their participation.

Stanislav Gross remains at the top of the chart (he enjoys confidence of 66% of the respondents), followed by president Václav Klaus (60%) and ministers Tvrdík (54%) and Buzková (52%). The 50 % public confidence limit was further surpassed only by the ex-president Havel (52%). In comparison with the January 2003 results there was a significant growth in public confidence in the case of president Klaus (+25 % points), ODS leader Topolánek (+7 %) and ministers Šimonovský and Škromach (both +5 %).

In April survey we were again asking about the level of inhabitants’ confidence in individual constitutional institutions. The results show that the president is trusted by 64%, government by 40%, Chamber of Deputies by 32% and Senate by 24% of the respondents. Regional councils are regarded as trustworthy by 40% and local councils by 63% of the respondents.

All respondents having the right to vote were traditionally asked an open question (i.e. without a list of political parties being used) investigating which party they would vote for if an election to the Chamber of Deputies took place the following week. The structure of the answers given is summarised in the table.

The question ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week.

The actual attack on Iraq was supported by 24 % of Czech citizens in the first half of April, while 70 % did not agree with it. However, simultaneously the attack on Iraq without the mandate of the Security Council of the UN was labelled as acceptable only by 16 % of respondents, whereas 77 % expressed an opposite standpoint. Supporters of military action against Iraq most frequently named the reason for their opinion as the necessity to remove Saddam’s regime (29 %), the necessity of fighting terrorism (23 %), the necessity of securing international safety (14 %), inevitability and justification of a military solution of the problems with Iraq (9 %) or the necessity of eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (7 %).

People place the greatest trust in persons they know (88% of respondents trust most of them). More than a half of respondents (54%) are of the opinion that they can believe the majority of people in our country, whereas roughly two fifths are persuaded to the contrary. Those surveyed generally consider our media (62%) and the army (55%) to be trustworthy. A large proportion of respondents also trust the police (53%), as opposed to 43% who mistrust it.