Transformation of care regimes in Central Eastern Europe: the case of Croatia and the Czech Republic

Ivana Dobrotić and Blanka Plasová

The multiple and extensive transformations that have occurred in Eastern Europe since the 1990s did not bypass care, bringing diverse care regimes. This chapter, in the Research Handbook on Social Care Policy, aims to explore the main trends in the development of care policies in Croatia (a post-Yugoslav country) and the Czech Republic (a Visegrád country). After a brief insight into the socialist period in which the care infrastructure was first established, post-1990 reforms in both childcare-related and long-term care policies are analyzed in more detail. The following questions guide the analysis: 1) How have care rights developed in the two countries? (i.e. the extent to which and how care rights are recognized); 2) What are the similarities and differences in these countries’ care regimes?