THE POLITICAL CRISIS WHICH ERUPTED IN POLAND IN 1980 WAS widely attributed to the economic problems which beset the country then and subsequently. Economic conditions undoubtedly contributed to the crisis — but survey evidence suggests that gradual cultural changes were a less obvious but at least equally important factor. Historically, the Polish people have characteristically placed relatively great emphasis on self-determination and political freedoms. This traditional heritage has not grown weaker in recent years. Quite the contrary, it seems to have been reinforced by a gradual shift toward postmaterialist values among the Polish public.An intergenerational shift from materialist toward postmaterialist priorities, already shown to be taking place in more than a score of Western countries, also seems to be occurring in Poland.
The situations of men and women in the labor market in particular countries strongly differ from one another. The differences are loosely related to attitudes concerning work, family life, and gender. This article characterizes Polish social politics and society as a mosaic of traditional and nontraditional values, expectations, and behaviors when it comes to family and work. One of the basic questions is whether new lines of conflict and new spheres of understanding are emerging between women and men as they adapt to changing living conditions in the postcommunist era. These changes are taking place in the context of transforming living conditions and of social and cultural capital that is increasing faster for women than for men, while gender inequality still dominates the relationship between men and women. Public policy is confronted with changing systems of values and attitudes toward family and work. These changes are not occurring at the same pace with changes in different social groups, even though they are moving in the same direction. The rapidly growing number of people with higher education,
This chapter examines changes in the representation of women in the Polish parliament from the 1990s to 2001. Women candidates had the best outcome in the 2001 election due to electoral law change, improvements in public attitudes towards women, the fact that women arguing for better representation were more organized and mobilized than in the past, and the parties that tended to be more representative of women did much better than in the previous election.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.