When Family Policy Doesn’t Work: Motives and Welfare Attitudes Among Childfree Persons in Poland

The primary goal of this article was to analyse the welfare attitudes of people self‐declaring as childless by choice alongside the exploration of their social experience as childfree persons in the context of a rapid increase in the generosity of pro‐natalist public policies in Poland. The analysis is based on semi‐structured interviews conducted with 19 respondents recruited via Facebook network groups. Thematic analysis was applied identifying six general themes: “satisfied and never had the need”; “dealing with social pressure”; “family measures—yes, but not this way”; “unfair treatment of the childfree”; “towards welfare state for all”; and “change my mind? Never, even if offered one million dollars.” The research demonstrated that childfree persons present favourable views on state support for families with children. While critical of cash‐based family support, respondents have a clear preference for investing in services enabling women to participate in the labour market. Finally, if public policies aimed at removing barriers to parenthood were strengthened, this would not change the respondents’ minds about procreation

Social Policy in the Face of a Global Pandemic : Policy Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

This article documents and compares the social policies that the governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) implemented to combat the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. Our findings show that governments in all four countries reacted to the COVID-19 crisis by providing extensive protection for jobs and enterprises. Differences arise when it comes to solidaristic policy responses to care for the most vulnerable population, in which CEE countries show great variation. We find that social policy responses to the first wave of COVID-19 have largely depended on precious social policy trajectories as well as the political situation of the country during the pandemic

Ki törődik a gyerekekkel?

A tanulmány az új EU-tagországok gyermekgondozási ellátásait hasonlítja össze. A gyermekgondozási politika két fő pillérét – az államilag nyújtott gyermekgondozási szolgáltatásokat és a gyermekgondozáshoz igénybe vehető szülői szabadság juttatásait – vizsgálja. Az elemzésben a fuzzy halmazok ideáltípusainak megközelítését alkalmaztuk. Az eddigi tanulmányokkal ellentétben a cikk a kelet-közép-európai régiót nem egységes tömbként kezeli, hanem arra törekszik, hogy bemutassa a régió egyes országaiban alkalmazott gyermekgondozási politikák eltéréseit. Ezeket az eltéréseket rendszerbe foglaltan tárgyalja, melyben a gyermekgondozási szakpolitikák négy fő csoportját azonosítja. Ezek a következők: explicit familiarizmus, implicit familiarizmus, női mobilizáció és átfogó támogatás. A vizsgált országok közül a Cseh Köztársaság, Szlovákia és Szlovénia az explicit familiarizmus szakpolitikai modellt, Észtország és Lettország a női mobilizációt, Litvánia és Magyarország pedig a gyermekgondozás átfogó támogatási modelljére jellemző szakpolitikákat képviseli; végül Lengyelország az implicit familiarizmus modell jellemzőivel írható le

A green but also just transition? Variations in social and industrial policy responses to industrial decarbonisation in EU member states

The EU aims for net carbon neutrality by 2050. Since industry contributes substantially to carbon emissions, reforms to decarbonise industry are necessary to achieve this goal. However, these reforms may entail labour market costs in the form of unemployment, which may necessitate social policies to mitigate them. Our article provides a novel contribution to the existing literature by developing a framework to classify how these policy responses may vary across EU Member States and it also suggests sources for these variations. We analyse the planned social policy responses of four countries – Denmark, Germany, Spain and Poland – by comparing the emphasis on social investment relative to compensation; the emphasis on social relative to industrial policy; and the extent to which social policy is targeted. Our findings suggest that Danish plans will rely primarily on social investment, whereas Poland will rely on compensation. In Germany, there is a greater emphasis on industrial policy, and Spain’s planned responses differ between policies targeted at coal miners and policies for other workers

Divorce Trends in Seven Countries Over the Long Transition from State Socialism: 1981–2004

The collapse of communism was a defining geopolitical event of late-20th century Europe, with well-documented economic, social, and political implications. Yet there is a striking absence of research on how it influenced divorce. The objective of this study is to provide an exploratory analysis of trends in divorce over the long transition from communism—starting from the decline of the communist economy in the 1980s and ending with economic revival—in seven countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Russia. We discuss how the transition could be expected to either increase or decrease divorce risks. We analyze retrospective micro-level data on first marriages from the Changing Life Course Regimes in Eastern Europe (CLiCR) dataset. Based on our event-history analyses, we find that divorce rates increased in each country at some stage during the long transition and these increases cannot be explained by compositional change of the marriages. However, no uniform pattern emerged in the timing and duration of the increase in divorce risk. This striking variation leads us to conclude that even the effect of major societal ruptures is contextually contingent

Ideas, rules, and agency: Public bureaucrats and the evolution of family policies in Hungary and Poland

Defense Date: 25/09/2009Examining Board: László Bruszt (EUI), Jula S. O'Oconnor (University of Ulster), Ann Shola Orloff (Northwestern University), Sven Steinmo (EUI) (Supervisor)The starting point for the thesis is the striking difference between the mixes of family policies in the two post-communist countries: Hungary and Poland. I argue that Poland can be best viewed as a case of implicit familialism, and Hungary as a case of what I call, optional familialism. Polish family policy is largely residual in the sense that social programs in Poland leave the sphere of care almost solely to the family. In Hungary, in contrast, we find a much more ‘progressive’ family support system with relatively generous benefits and services in support of women and childcare. In my view, the differences in family policy between these two countries are in themselves substantively interesting. We need to know more about family policies in this part of the world. But I am also interested in explaining these differences. I find it puzzling that these two countries share broadly common historical experiences having both undergone massive and similar regime changes over the past 50 years - yet appear to have developed such different policy systems. It would be reasonable to expect that they would have similar social (and in this case: family) policies. What we find, however, is that in spite of the common political and economic transformations - from early democratizing nations, to communist dictatorships, and finally to capitalist democracies - family policies have followed remarkably consistent patterns in each country. Indeed, the family policy regimes found today in each of these countries have more in common with the regimes found in each country 50 years ago than they do with each other. The question is: why? My main argument is that the development of family policies in Hungary and Poland is the example of a path-dependent institutional evolution. Following the authors that have recently emphasised the role of agency, the thesis presents family policy development in these two countries as the case of an agent-based mechanism of institutional evolution. In particular, I describe the role of different kinds of actors in defining the problems and providing solutions within the field of professional and family life. Furthermore, the mechanism focuses on the role of public bureaucrats playing with the formal and informal rules governing the administrative mode of operation

The Continuing Legacy of the Communist Legacy? the Development of Family Policies in Poland and the Czech Republic

This article compares family policies in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to explain why the two countries have different policies. Previous studies are right to claim that post-communist family policies are basically going in a refamilialist direction that gives mothers a greater incentive to return to the home, but they tend to neglect the important differences that exist between countries. Although previous studies were correct to emphasize the role of the anti-feminist communist legacy in explaining this trend toward re-famialilization, it is a country's economic-institutional legacy that goes the farthest in explaining the differences in policies

Ireland country note

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research has been producing an annual review of leave policies and related research since 2005. The review covers Maternity, Paternity and Parental leaves; leave to care for sick children and other employment-related measures to support working parents; and early childhood education and care policy. The review is based on country notes from each participating country, prepared by members of the network and edited by several of the network’s coordinators. Each country note follows a standard format: details of different types of leave; the relationship between leave policy and early childhood education and care policy; recent policy developments (including those relating to COVID-19); information on take-up of leave

Who Cares ? Changing Patterns of Childcare in Central and Eastern Europe

This article compares childcare provisions in the new member countries of the EU. It takes into account two pillars of childcare policy: publicly provided childcare services and parental leave provisions. In the analysis, the fuzzy set ideal types approach is utilized. In contrast to the studies conducted so far, this article stops treating the region of Cental and Eastern Europe as a monolith and demonstrates the existence of cross-country variation of childcare policies within the region. Furthermore, the difference is systematized by identifying four clusters of childcare policy. These are: explicit familialism, implicit familialism, female mobilizing and comprehensive support types. The countries are clustered as follows: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia in the explicit familism policy model; Estonia and Latvia in the female mobilizing type policy; Lithuania and Hungary pursuing the childcare policies typical of the comprehensive support model; and finally the childcare policy in Poland resembles characteristics of the implicit familism model