Organisation-level policy toward older workers in Poland

This article presents the results of studies on organisation-level strategies towards older workers in Poland. The analyses were based on a national and representative sample survey of 1,037 companies (public and private sectors) - the first of its kind in Poland. The question of the survey was: How do Polish employers deal with an ageing workforce and how can management tap into their potential through various measures? The analyses revealed three different strategies: (i) improvement of productivity - trying to improve the skills and competencies of older workers, increase their effective use of and adjustment to the workplace, plan individual career moves and avoid work burn-out; (ii) the pushing out of older workers - attempting to rid the workplace of older workers as quickly as possible; (iii) accommodation and reduction of labour costs - slowly preparing senior workers for retirement and creating conditions that would meet their actual needs

Working carers in Poland : successful strategies of reconciliation of work and care of an older adult

This paper focuses on the possible methods and measures that individual Polish informal carers utilize in order to manage the double burden of work and care. The strategies they use are understood as conscious and systematized ways of tackling the everyday obligations in order to successfully reconcile different duties. Based on interviews with working carers (N=58), the strategies they invented (either intentionally or accidentally) were intended to remedy the stress resulting from multiple conflict situations in everyday life. These strategies were individual approaches of every carer to the often unique situation of reconciliation, which could nevertheless form a set of practical advice for the benefit of working carers in Poland, but also in other countries

Pet goods consumption in Polish households

This paper expands the considerations of Becker’s and Leibenstein’s family theories with a focus on the additional member of the household (pet/animal) in the analysis of consumption. It is the first analytical approach regarding pet goods consumption with references to microeconomic theories based on Polish data. The study analyses the households’ characteristics that have an impact on expenditure on pet goods. This article used the Polish Household Budget Surveys for 2018. The findings from the logistic regression models suggest that the household’s socio-economic group, place of living, children in household and whether the household rents the flat/accommodation impact on determining the probability of owning a pet among Polish house-holds; analyses of interactions between significant variables were also conducted. However, the human-animal bond could not be included in analysis, which is a limitation, the overall work is pioneering, as it shows the quantitative approach to household economy that highlights the need to elaborate the economic family theories of Becker and Leibenstein by a new family member – a pet

Cztery rodzaje edukacji gerontologicznej w Polsce – sytuacja obecna i przyszłe potrzeby

An increased interest in gerontological (old age) education has been recently observed in Poland. It is moreover claimed that this discipline has undergone a rapid development. This observation is particularly true in the context of the Universities of Third Age (U3A) movement. In this paper, we would like to revise current concepts, developed for the purpose of gerontological education, and then contribute to the overall discussion to stress that there is a need to include all education-oriented activities related to old age and ageing in various aspects as one integrated theoretical concept. We would like to address this topic in a holistic manner. However, we aim to connect the aspect of the recent development of old age-focused educational activities carried out in Poland with some data that has not been published before. This will provide an option to understand the development of education of these concepts in Poland as well as help to identify the drawbacks of this process. We will contribute an in-depth evaluation of this process in Poland and outline future needs which have to be met to use all opportunities to prepare both the present and future society for the rapid ageing of Poland’s population

Why is pet goods consumption imperceptible for economists? : a scoping review

Nowadays, pets more frequently are becoming family members which deserve certain products and goods, as well as services. In this way, pets are becoming consumers even they do not have a possibility to make decisions (as opposed to human being) as we analyze taking into account human being. Recently pet-related topics are gaining more attention in the press and among researchers in the field of marketing and psychology. Numerous articles regarding pet-related business patterns, like pet insurance, day care and pet friendly hotels are published. No wonder, the popularity of pets among households has been growing for many years. In this article, a scoping review aimed at identifying available studies about expenditures on pet goods and owners’ economic consumption choices has been conducted. A comprehensive search strategy was used across Scopus and EBSCO database. The results show that there is only a few studies concerning pet goods consumption through the lens of economic theories. As such this topic in not explored enough while the market of goods and services is growing

Łączenie pracy i opieki nad osobą starszą – wpływ na jakość życia opiekuna

Sprawowanie opieki nad osobą starszą w połączeniu z wykonywa-niem pracy zawodowej nie jest zagadnieniem szeroko omawianym we współczesnej polskiej literaturze gerontologicznej, socjologicznej czy psychologicznej. W niniej-szym artykule zastanawiamy się nad wpływem łączenia obu tych obowiązków na jakość życia pracującego opiekuna osoby starszej. Wyniki wybranych badań wska-zują na fakt większego niż przeciętne obciążenia pracujących opiekunów w stosun-ku do niepracujących opiekunów, a także w stosunku do osób nie posiadających obowiązków opiekuńczych. Pracujący opiekunowie widzą w sprawowaniu opieki przeszkodę w innych aktywnościach życiowych, co nie pozostaje bez wpływu na ich ogólne samopoczucie. Zaprezentujemy wyniki wywiadów jakościowych z pracu-jącymi opiekunami, które zostały zrealizowane w ramach międzynarodowego pro-jektu Carers&Work. Pracujący opiekunowie (głównie starsi, 50+) nie tylko subiek-tywnie oceniają swoje obecne życie nienajlepiej (przykładowo: złe samopoczucie, poczucie bezradności, wykluczenia), ale też obiektywnie można wnioskować, że ich sytuacja nie jest dobra (problemy ze zdrowiem, np. kręgosłupem, ciśnieniem, ane-mia). W oparciu o wyniki wskazano wstępne rekomendacje, które mogą zapobiegać obniżeniu jakości życia nie tylko pracujących opiekunów, ale generalnie wszystkim osobom, które zajmują się opieką nad osobami starszymi