Parental Leave Policy Reform in the Context of Family Life Transformation. Insights from the GEQ2015 Study in Poland and Implications for Policy Makers

Poland has been considered as an example of gendering family policies. For a long time, public policies’ main focus on maternity leave, combined with a lack of paternity leave, unpaid care leaves and insufficient childcare facilities, enhanced gender inequalities by pushing mothers to become the main carer. Only recently, starting from 2010, new changes in the childcare policies have tried to address the existing inequalities by providing a right to care to both parents. These policy changes can be seen as an attempt to support new models of motherhood and fatherhood, recognize men’s greater involvement in nurturing and caring duties at home as well as to offer possibilities to combine family and work-related duties. The aim of this presentation is to discuss the implementation of these new policies, namely the paternity and parental leave in Poland. Based on the nation-wide representative survey and focus group interviews, we will show whether the instruments implemented in Poland have stimulated the development of new models of parenthood and changes in childcare patterns and practices in a context of new models of family life (Slany, Krzaklewska, Warat 2016). Firstly, based on nation-wide Gender Equality and Quality of Life 2015 study, we will examine the attitude towards gender roles (especially in family life) and gender equality. Secondly, we will discuss the use of policy instruments, namely different types of childcare leaves. Moreover, we will look at these changes through the prism of cultural, structural, legal and institutional conditions, trying to examine to what extent the implementation of childcare policies and the choice of instruments address the needs and possibilities of parents. Finally, we will discuss the solutions, which – according to the respondents – would help parents to reconcile work and family obligations.