Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic

      The pension insurance programme takes care of citizens in the case of old age, disability or loss of breadwinner. Provided within this programme as of 1 January 1996 (Social Security Act No. 155/1995 Coll., on Pension Insurance) are old-age, disability (full and partial), widows', widowers', and orphans' pensions. According to the Act, wives' pensions, pensions for long-term service, social pensions, pensions granted before 1 January 1957 are provided as either disability or old-age pensions. The tables relating to pension insurance do not include data concerning the Ministry of Defence of the CR, the Ministry of the Interior of the CR and the Ministry of Justice of the CR.

      In 1995, Act No. 118/1995 Coll. was passed to amend some laws in connection with the adoption of the State Social Support Act. Separated out of the health insurance scheme were some benefits of non-insurance nature (child-birth grant, child benefit, parental benefit, death grant) to be incorporated into state social care support benefits. Starting with 1 July 1997 and according to the Social Benefit Act No. 75/1997 Coll., the so-called separate benefits such as heat contribution (the amount of money to compensate for the higher prices of energy) and housing rental contribution were paid. They were constructed in the same way as the state social care support benefits. The right to these contributions was regulated by a special law, because the contributions were price compensation in nature, and the right was in force for a transition period of three years only.

      The sickness insurance system of benefits includes four benefits, namely sickness benefit, family member care benefit, maternity benefit, and pregnancy and maternity compensation benefit. These benefits are fully provided to employed persons, members of producer cooperatives, and cooperative farmers. Of the four benefits mentioned above, self-employed persons receive neither the family member care benefit nor the maternity and pregnancy compensation benefit, and job applicants are only entitled to the maternity one.

      The social care scheme is used by the government to help citizens who find themselves in unfavourable life conditions and cannot overcome their difficulties without getting help from others. Social care benefits and services comprise care for family and child, care for citizens with reduced capacity to work, care for senior and severely handicapped citizens, care for citizens requiring special help, and care for socially not adapted citizens. (They include, e.g., rendering community care services, catering for pensioners and other non-financial assistance, contributions to the blind, contributions to costs of powered wheelchairs for the disabled, contributions to citizens suffering from tuberculosis or diabetes, contributions granted in extraordinary situations, etc.)

      Costs of care for citizens with reduced capacity to work also include costs of training such people for appropriate occupations, contributions paid before the people are placed in jobs and financial help granted for the time period in which they are being prepared for their occupations.

      The Czech statistical service uses outputs from the information systems run by (i) the Czech Social Security Administration (information on sickness insurance benefits, pensions actually paid, pension insurance benefits, average monthly level of newly granted pensions, average pensions - all except data for the Ministry of Defence of the CR, the Ministry of the Interior of the CR and the Ministry of Justice of the CR) and (ii) the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the CR (information on expenditure on social care services, social care establishments and beds in these establishments, retirement homes, community care services, state social security benefits).

Notes on tables

Table 24-1. Average numbers of the sickness insured

      The indicator shows the average number of persons who are sickness insured under Act No. 54/1956 Coll., on Sickness Insurance of Employed Persons, as last amended.

      Excluded from this statutory insurance are regular members of the armed forces, foreign nationals (not residing in the territory of the Czech Republic), employees working in the Czech Republic for an employer not based (having no seat) in the Czech Republic, and employees with occasional jobs only. The average number of the sickness insured does not include women on maternity leave and temporary members of the armed forces.

      Before 1997, only data from collected questionnaires were published, i.e. no estimates for non-response were made. Starting with 1997, the data have been grossed to universe.

      The table is broken down by institutional sector, and the individual sectors are defined as follows:

• public sector (government and municipal);
• private sector (including cooperatives and employees of unincorporated natural persons, excluding self-employed persons);
• foreign sector (businesses controlled by foreign owners);
• self-employed persons.

      Since 1991, the following groups of socially secured citizens have been measured following up the way of paying insurance premium:

1.  Employees of legal persons

• benefits paid to employees having contracts of employment with legal persons.

• benefits paid to employees of natural persons and to employees having contracts of employment with citizens to provide them with personal needs services (housewives, baby sitting, etc.).

• benefits paid to members of agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives.

• benefits paid to gainfully active self-employed persons as stipulated in the Social Security Act as last amended and detailed by the Decree of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs No. 149/1988 Coll., through which the Act is enforced - i.e. to persons who carry out artistic or other creative activities under the Copyright Act (dealing with the works of art, literature and science) rather than under the Code of Labour, provided they want to carry out such activities systematically; and to spouses of these persons, if they participate in their gainful employment;
• benefits paid to self-employed persons who are gainfully active as set out by the Decree of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs No. 149/1988, through which the Social Security Act is enforced, as last amended - i.e. to persons running their businesses under the Act on Private Enterprise of Citizens (Entrepreneurs) and to other persons running their businesses independently on their own account as laid down by other generally binding legislation; spouses of such persons are included, if they participate in their gainful employment;
• benefits paid to private farmers who cultivate agricultural land and are gainfully active in person on their own, including their spouses, children, brothers and sisters (since they completed their compulsory education), parents, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, common-law husband, common-law wife, if they are permanently engaged in the gainful activity of the private farmer, or the spouse of this cooperating member of the family, unless the Code of Labour applies;
• benefits paid to sportsmen and sportswomen who pursue, as they declare, sporting activities gainfully as their occupation, unless labour-law or other relations are involved.

• benefits paid to job applicants and citizens with reduced capacity to work.

• benefits paid to persons - voluntary participants in the sickness insurance scheme.

Table 24-3. Sickness insurance benefits

      The data on benefits paid from the sickness insurance scheme include benefits paid by the government (benefits paid from the cultural and social needs fund are excluded).

      They are:

      sickness benefit: paid in cases of incapacity to work due to illness or injury and possibly, of imposed quarantine;

      family member care benefit: provided usually for nine calendar days to one of the parents who cares for a sick child;

      maternity benefit: paid during maternity leave for a time period of 28 weeks, of which 6 weeks before the expected date of delivery;

      pregnancy and maternity compensation benefit: provided to women in pregnancy or maternity who had to be moved to another, less paid job due to pregnancy.

Tables 24-4 and 24-5. Pensions and pension insurance benefits paid

      The tables list pensions paid in 1995 under Act No. 100/1988 Coll., on Pension Insurance as last amended and since 1996 under Act No. 155/1995 Coll., on Pension Insurance.

Table 24-6. Average monthly level of pensions

      Shown are data on pensioners who receive only basic ("solo") pensions, such as old-age, disability, widows' and widowers' pensions, from which the average level of solo-pensions is calculated. Listed are also combined widows' and widower's pensions where the amounts of both pensions paid are added up (in compliance with Act No. 100/1988 Coll., before 1996; and Act No. 155/1995 Coll., since 1996). The amounts of money paid to the helpless and in the form of child benefits paid to pensioners looking after children are excluded. Included in the pensions since 1 December 1994 has been the government compensation benefit which is now their integral part. The average monthly level of the pensions paid is their average level per pensioner in the reference month, as expressed by the following formula:

A is the average monthly level of the pensions paid,
B is the sum of the amounts of pensions provided according to pension sheets in the last month of the reference period,
C is the number of pensions paid.

      The pensioner is included in that type of social security for which he/she satisfies the requirements for granting pension (in compliance with Act No. 100/1988 Coll., before 1996; Act No. 155/1995 Coll., since 1996).

Tables 24-7 and 24-8. Number and average level of new pensions granted: by type, by sex

      Listed are pensions provided in accordance with Act No. 155/1995 Coll., on Pension Insurance (except for proportional old-age pensions) or relevant provisions of preceding regulations:

• full old-age pension (Article 29 (a))
• proportional old-age pension (Article 26, Act No. 100/1988 Coll.; Article 29 (b), Act No. 155/1995 Coll.)
• early old-age pension - by 2 years (Article 30)
• early old-age pension - by 3 years (Article 31)
• full disability pension (Article 38)
• full disability pension from childhood (Article 42)
• partial disability pension (Article 43)
• widow's pension (Article 49 (1))
• widower's pension (Article 49 (2))
• orphan's pension (Article 52).

      Included are also expenditures of local governments. Since 1992, expenditures on social care for citizens with reduced capacity to work and severely handicapped citizens have been including expenditures on sheltered workshops for the latter and assistance before they took up jobs. The institutional social care expenditures include costs of operation only and exclude investment expenditures.

Tables 24-19 and 24-20.State social support benefits paid; benefits to families with children

      The presented figures on state social care support benefits paid include benefits provided with regard to the income level of family - i.e. tested benefits such as child benefit, social benefit, housing contribution and transport contribution and regardless of the income family - i.e. non-tested benefits such as parental benefit, providing-for benefit, foster care benefit, child-birth grant and death grant. Paid also were the so-called separate benefits: heat contribution (paid from 1 July 1997 to 30 June 2000) and rental contribution (paid from 1 July 1997 to 31 December 2000), which were constructed like the tested benefits.

      Characteristics of some of the benefits:

      child-birth grant:provided to parents for each child as a contribution to cover extraordinary expenses incidental to the birth of a child (regardless of the income of family). The child-birth grant amounts to four times the subsistence level needed to cover personal needs of a child;

      child benefits: before 1996, it was provided to each child from birth to end of their education (preparation for occupation), the amount depending on the child's age. Since 1 January 1996, however, the amount of the benefit has been dependent on the child's age and the income of family. The benefits are provided to children living in families with income smaller than three times the subsistence level of family;

      foster care: includes a benefit to cover a foster child's needs, foster parents compensation, child take-over grant, and motor vehicle purchase contribution;

      providing-for benefit: entitled to this benefit is a child of a temporary member of the armed forces, wife of the member or another person, to whom the member owes the duty to pay maintenance money when executing his temporary military or compulsory community service or when on a military training, irrespective of their incomes. The wife is entitled to the benefit, only if she takes care for a child up to the child's age of 4 (or 7, if the child is severely handicapped for a long time), is disabled or has another serious reason for which she cannot work.

      parental benefit: provided to a parent who takes care for a child up to 4 (or to 7, if the child is severely handicapped for a long time) personally and round the clock. The amount of the benefit is equal to 1.1 times the subsistence level for personal and life needs of the parent, who takes care for the child;

      social benefit: paid to low-income families as a contribution to costs of covering needs of their children. Its amount depends on the age of child and income of family. Entitled to this benefit is a parent, if he/she takes care for a child and the income of family does not exceed 1.6 times the subsistence level of the family;

      social benefit to parents with unprovided-for children: amounts to subsistence level and is paid, when the parents with their incomes find themselves at the subsistence level and are not entitled to unemployment benefit;

      child maintenance benefit: provided only to children, for whom the maintenance duty is ruled by a court of law (the so-called maintenance advancing), in the extent corresponding to general principles of social necessity.

      Subsistence level amounts (Act No. 463/1991 Coll., on Subsistence Level stipulates the subsistence level as the sum of amounts needed to cover personal needs of individual household members plus amounts for the household):

      The figures in Tables 24-2 to 24-16 and 24-18 to 24-20 are taken over from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the CR.

      The figures for 2002 are comparable with figures published for previous years.

      More detailed information obtained from the sources of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic is given in the following CZSO separate publications brought out according to the CZSO Catalogue of Publications 2003 (group 3 - LABOUR, SOCIAL STATISTICS, subgroup 32 - Social Security):

• "Vybrané údaje o sociálním zabezpečení", in October 2003 (data for January-June 2003) and in May 2004 (data for the whole year)
• "Síť vybraných zařízení sociální péče v roce 2002", in the 4th quarter of 2003 (annual data).