Czech Children in Need and the Mixed Economy of Welfare in Interwar Czechoslovakia (1918–1939)

The chapter is concerned with the system of social assistance targeting children in need in the Bohemian lands. Due to the fact that Czechoslovakia consists of two parts, each with a different history and legal tradition, it is useful here to treat both parts – the former Cisleithanian part (Bohemian lands) and theTransleithanian part (Slovakia and Ruthenia) – separately in order to demonstrate long-standing continuities inherited from the nineteenth century. This chapter is structured around three basic questions: Who cares? How is the care provided? and What are the consequences of care? The first question is focused on providers of social welfare. The Bohemian lands represented a quite unique form of the mixed economy of welfare in which the state had lower importance in comparison with regional self-government and voluntary agencies. The second question is concerned with forms of care (orphanages, foster care etc.). Foster care was preferred, but there was a scarcity of families willing to accept orphans into their households. The third question evaluates the original intentions of the founders of Czechoslovakia to form a progressive welfare regime, and the real practice.