Double Time-Bind in Paid Domestic Work: (Migrant) Workers and Their Employers in Italy and Poland

This paper puts forward a two-sided approach to late capitalist time regimes in paid household work by comparing the experience of time of domestic workers and domestic employers. Their time-related strategies are confronted with the aim of revealing common underlying patterns as well as possible divergences. First, migrant domestic workers’ strategies to cope with the (time) particularities of domestic work (e.g. asynchronies, free time deficit, long working hours, boredom) are analysed. Second, the experience of time of professionally active domestic employers, who in turn are pressured in their professional lives and employ domestic workers to meet these demands, is examined. The authors argue that domestic employers’ and workers’ time regimes interact and reinforce one another, creating a double time-bind. The data are drawn from Cojocaru’s research project on migrant domestic workers in Italy and Rosińska’s research on employers as well as local and migrant workers in Poland

Single, but not by Choice - On Deprivation of Relationships among Polish Corporate Employees

n studying contemporary transformations of social relations and family life, researchers and social theorists have been focused on the increased diversity of forms of bonding, coupling and other interpersonal connections. When single people are discussed, either it is to emphasize the disintegration of their ties and the crisis of the family, or their single life is considered as an identity choice. The aim of this text is to look at the experience of singleness not by choice among contemporary corporate employees in Poland and to try to set this experience against the background of a broader social reality, especially the reality of professional work. The text also examines the relationship between relational forms (including being single) and the social system in late capitalism. The experiences of people who are not single by choice are discussed and contrasting variants for people whose single situation is associated with low interpersonal skills and for those with an interactional proficiency are distinguished. In the conclusion, the authors are looking for patterns of connection between being unwillingly single and operating on the late capitalist labour market

Envisaging post-Brexit immobility: Polish migrants’ care intentions concerning their elderly parents

© 2020 The Authors. Published by University of Bamberg Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-352The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union will end the European Freedom of Movement and the privileged migration status of EU Citizens in the UK, which will likely affect ‘Brexit families’ and their transnational care arrangements. This is a case study of the biggest migrant group in the UK, namely Poles. Before the Brexit referendum, the first wave of the in-depth interviews identified several types of migrants’ intentions concerning elderly care for their parents who remained in Poland. The research approached intentions as discursive strategies: declarations of care commitment and statements provided to explain the absence of care intentions. The second wave was conducted after the UK had decided to exit the EU and new policies concerning EU citizens were being developed. Brexit’s influence on elderly care intentions is twofold. First, it brings higher uncertainty about future migration regulations and disorientates migrants about the possibilities regarding reunification with their parents in the UK. Second, Brexit appears in the interviews as a discursive construction to alleviate a migrant’s involvement in direct care provision, where they still deem it normatively appropriate to enact this cultural norm, but do not intend to in fact do so

Determinanty spadku płodności w Polsce – próba syntezy

This paper presents a theoretic synthesis of determinants of fertility decline in Poland in the post-war period. The differences in fertility determinants between the communist and post-communist periods are of particular interest. First, we present the changes in the number of births and their direct determinants: the number of women in reproductive age, forming lasting heterosexual relationships and the quantum and timing of fertility. The births’ decline in Poland is attributed to both quantum and timing effects and changes of union formation. In the second part, we discuss indirect determinants of fertility change by referring to main theoretical approaches to nuptiality and fertility, and by making use of research conducted in Poland. In the last section, we present a conceptual model distinguishing fertility determinants operating on the interconnected levels of production and reproduction system (the macro level), labour market and family (the meso level), and work and family social roles (the micro level). By showing how different factors operated differently in the Polish People’s Republic (until 1989) and during the post-communist transition, we analyse links between these determinants and importance of each of them

Poles in the World of Late Capitalism: Biographical Experiences in Contexts of Social Orders

The paper presents findings of a research project aimed at a reconstruction of the dynamics of biographical experiences of some of those categories of the Polish society’s members whose educational and professional careers have been shaped by the systemic transformation after 1989. The text is an attempt to delineate analytical guidelines for grasping how some components of three types of social order, conceived in terms of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity, interpenetrating each other in the contemporary life of the society, impact its members’ biographical experiences on the level of work, social ties and identity

Potentials of Poland Introduction to Socio-Economic Geography of Poland for Foreigners

The idea to write this book arose a few years ago during classes with foreign students. Those young people came to Poland not only to study in the areas of their choice but also to get to know people and the country. At that time, we did not have concise, modern monograph on Polish geography in English devised for people for whom geography is not the main study area. This book is exactly that. We wanted it to fit the tradition of regional geography. It was important for us to deliver as much information about the country as possible in the most accessible way. At the same time, thanks to explanation boxes with basic notions we remind the readers what geography as a science deals with. We entitled the monograph “Potentials of Poland” believing that foreigners will discover in our country opportunities which they had never expected. We strived to present a constantly changing and advancing country. Even though the subtitle includes the phrase “socio-economic geography”, the book includes chapters on physical geography and the political situation in Poland. We believe they are an essential to the whole. We hope that the “Potentials of Poland. Introduction to Socio- Economic Geography of Poland for foreigners” will help students understand what they see around themselves and will encourage others to visit Poland

Estimating and Modelling Harvester Productivity in Pine Stands of Different Ages, Densities and Thinning Intensities

In economic terms, the main limiting factors in harvester application in thinning operations are the stand age and thinning intensity with respect to tree size. Furthermore, harvested mean tree size depends on initial stand density but also on the number of trees cut per hectare. The objective of the research was to estimate the impact of: Þ stand age (class), Þ increasing stand density in each age class (AC), Þ increasing number of trees for harvesting in each AC, Þ thinning intensity, on harvester productivity. 17, 19 and 20 sample plots were established within 3rd (AC3) 4th (AC4) and 5th (AC5) age classes, respectively. In each AC, sample plots were selected that had an increasing number of trees per hectare: 563÷1603, 323÷868 and 476÷836 trees ha–1, in AC3, AC4 and AC5, respectively. Also, in each AC, an increasing number of trees per hectare for harvesting was selected: 130÷853, 80÷315 and 108÷282, in AC3, AC4 and AC5, respectively, with the relevant increasing thinning intensity: 35÷84, 21÷77 and 34÷88 m3 ha–1. In each AC, the stands were divided according to different thinning intensity (THI): a60 m3 ha–1, respectively. A Komatsu 931.1 harvester was used for the thinning operation in each stand. The lowest mean productivity was observed in AC3 (18.57 m3 h–1), which was statistically different to AC4 and AC5 (22.24 and 22.60 m3 h–1, respectively). Within each AC, productivity lowered as the number of trees per hectare increased in the initial stand. The productivity decreased in AC3 and AC5 with the increasing number of trees for harvesting, which was not the case in AC4. In relation to the THIs, the lowest mean productivity was obtained in THIa (16.19 m3 h–1), which was statistically different to THIb and THIc (21.44 and 21.98 m3 h–1, respectively). An increasing THI only influenced productivity positively in AC4 and AC5. It can be concluded that the productivity of the Komatsu 931.1 harvester increased along with: Þ older AC, Þ decreasing number of trees in the initial stand in each AC, Þ lowering number of trees for harvesting in AC3 and AC5, Þ increasing THI in only AC4 and AC5. Finally, in the present model, the larger the mean DBH of the trees for harvesting, the greater the productivity. However, the mean DBH has to be considered in conjunction with the number of trees for harvesting (which depends on AC and THI, as variables in the model) when productivity is analysed

Dysplazja obojczykowo-czaszkowa u 15-miesięcznego chłopca i 14-letniej dziewczynki : prezentacja kliniczna i obraz radiologiczny

Background: Cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD) is a rare, autosomal dominant skeletal dysplasia with a relatively mild course. The most characteristic symptoms are clavicle hypoplasia or aplasia, abnormalities in the skull ossification, and a variety of dental pathologies. Case report: The clinical course and radiological presentation of two cases (a 15-month-old boy and a 14-year-old girl) of CCD are presented. Among the characteristic phenotype features the patients demonstrated were abnormalities in the skull formation, with wide sutures and large, delayed closure of the fontanelles, additional Wormian bones, and significant dental abnormalities, in both cases with delayed eruption of teeth and, in the girl, intensive caries, cross bite, and impacted teeth. The boy presented hypoplasia of the clavicles, while aplastic clavicles were confirmed in the girl. In both cases clavicle defects resulted in descended shoulders with abnormal movement faculty. Metacarpal and phalangeal defects were also found in both children as well as abnormalities in pelvic structure, with wide pubic symphysis and vertical arrangement of the pelvic bones in the girl. Conclusions: CCD is a skeletal dysplasia with characteristic clinical and radiological presentation. Although the course of the disorder is relatively mild, early orthopedic, dental, and orthodontic care, as well as rehabilitation, are essential in limiting complications resulting from the congenital malformation of the skeletal system

Pandemic chronicles 2020-2021

Kroniki pandemii to zbiór 27 stanowisk opublikowanych przez interdyscyplinarny Zespół doradczy ds. COVID-19 przy Prezesie Polskiej Akademii Nauk, działający od lipca 2020 roku. Jest to już drugie po Zrozumieć COVID-19 obszerniejsze opracowanie naszego zespołu porządkujące wiadomości dotyczące wirusa SARS-CoV-2 i powodowanej przez niego choroby COVID-19. Wydane we wrześniu 2020 roku Zrozumieć COVID-19 miało na celu podsumowanie przebiegu pierwszych miesięcy pandemii i przygotowanie społeczeństwa w Polsce do ciężkiego sezonu jesienno-zimowego 2020/2021. Niniejsze opracowanie powstaje po dwóch latach trwania pandemii, która rozpoczęła się w Wuhan w grudniu 2019 roku. Mamy nadzieję, że dzięki na bieżąco tworzonym tekstom raportującym przebieg pandemii i dylematy, przed którymi stawało społeczeństwo, w przypadku kolejnych podobnych wyzwań skorzystamy z tych trudnych i ważnych doświadczeń