Gender, Family, and Work: The Case of Poland in Cross-National Perspective

Abstract

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,

Two Sexes, Two Genders Only: Measuring Attitudes toward Transgender Individuals in Poland

“…In the case of gender egalitarianism, Poland ranks 42nd of 149 countries in the world in the Global Gender Gap Report (World Economic Forum 2018), and this position is stable since 2006 (44th of 115 countries). Some researchers pointed out that although values and attitudes toward family and work are still changing after the political transformation in Poland, gender roles seem to still be strongly aligned with traditional features (Siemieńska 2008). This statement found confirmation in the study of Donaldson et al (2017), who showed that social conservatism in Poland, defined as an adherence to traditional ideology, obtained a score of 4 of 5 (where 5 denotes the highest level of this country-level variable).…”

Early evidence of parental attachment among polish adolescents

“…Social norms of behavior, working rules, values, parental and gender roles that successfully organized the life of individuals and their families for the last fifty years during the collectivistic communist culture became non-adaptive and useless. This phenomenon, defined in terms of social anomy, must have had an impact on the family processes, especially with regard to the family orientation which is considered to be the core for Polish culture (Boski, 2009;Inglehart & Welzel, 2005;Nowak, 1979;Siemieńska, 2008). Social anomy may lead to differences in attachment.…”

The feminization of governance in rural communities in Poland: the case of village representatives (sołtys)

“…In addition, the increase in the level of education and growing aspirations of women motivates them to become more involved in the public sphere (Siemieńska 2008). However, it has to be noted that traditional farming was based on the significant contributions of all family members, which did not really fit the simplistic traditional family model.…”