Family Life in Poland

As an anthropologist, I always try to focus on the experience of everyday life. Ethnography provides a qualitative method to do field research in situations that seem ordinary and, some might think, even trivial. The Skalny Teaching Grant gave me a unique opportunity to observe everyday life in the United States, and this was enhanced because I was able to bring my husband and 5-year old son with me. Their presence provoked comparisons that made me reflect on family life in modern Poland. What follows is an unsystematic auto-ethnographic essay, based on my personal experience, which will touch on a fewproblems that are characteristic of the life of the average Polish family living in a big city, such as Warsaw, Kraków or Wrocław.

A "Typical Polish Family"

The model of the Polish family has been transformed since the end of Communism by structural change and the introduction of a free-market economy. Indeed, contemporary family life in Poland is more similar to the experience prevailing in Western Europe than to Polish family life in the 1960s. First, the traditional model from that period consisted of several generations living together. Today, homes in which three generations live together are becoming rare. Second, traditional gender roles have been changing, as a more equal partnership replaces the earlier patriarchal order. Traditionally, the man served as breadwinner and consequently as leader, while the woman was supposed to take care of the home and children, and be dependent on her husband, even if she pursued an active professional career. However, even though the roles were not equal, a popular Polish saying expresses the nuances of the hierarchy: “a man is the head of the family, but a woman is the neck, which turns the head.” Today, partnership is much more accepted by both genders. Third, although Poles young and old continue to consider family and family life to be among their most important values, they define their happiness within a family differently than their ancestors did, paying more attention to their personal achievements and individual goals.

Becoming a Family

My husband and I married at age 25, but we were among the first in our peer group who took this step. Fewer people are married each year in Poland, which corresponds to the global trend connecting increasing national income with a decline in marital status. In the beginning of the 1980s there were nine marriages per thousand people, and in the 1990s only six. The number of marriages in Poland has been decreasing since 2008. People in wealthy, Nordic countries like Finland and Sweden typically do not marry until they are in their thirties, but Poland is about average for a European country, with the average woman marrying at age 27 and the average man at 29. In addition, there are fewer canonical marriages. A church wedding is traditionally Polish, but my acquaintances who are priests tell me that many young couples seek a church wedding for a picturesque setting and to satisfy the expectations of older family members rather than for religious reasons. This attitude exemplifies the division into practicing and non-practicing Catholics: while 94 percent of Poles consider themselves to be Catholics, only 40 percent practice regularly. The youngest generation of Poles rejects faith more readily, although as many as 71 percent of its members still say that they believe in God.

One factor that delays marriage is the fact that Poles are prioritizing education. Newly-weds are more highly educated: over 47% of brides had a higher education in 2013, in comparison to only 4% in the 1990s. When planning for the future, young people first try to invest in themselves – in education and work – and then in the family. After completing their studies, they try to buy or rent their own house or apartment, and only after that do they decide to get married. Marriage appears to be becoming a result of being independent, rather than a means of gaining independence, as it used to be in the past. More couples are deciding to live together before marriage, although this conflicts with Catholic teaching, and the majority regard this as a testing period leading to marriage. Marriages with foreigners have become more common: Polish women marry mainly men from Western Europe, while Polish men marry women from Eastern Europe. This reflects increased mobility within EU borders. In spite of all of these changes, however, what really distinguishes Poland is the fact that the level of non-marital cohabitation is very low in comparison with the Western Europe, not mentioning the Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, were consensual unions are currently as common as marital unions. Generally, most people who live in cohabitation are divorced, separated or widowed. Cohabitants do not have the same legal rights that spouses have in marriage; for example, inheritance law privileges to the closest members of the family.

The divorce rate in Poland, 1.2 divorces per 1000 residents, is low compared to other EU countries; only Slovenia had a lower divorce rate (1.1). The divorce procedure in Poland is quite complex, often lasting years after a couple files for a divorce. The court often decides that a couple should first seek marriage counseling for the sake of the children, and the divorce is finalized only when a court decides (after several hearings, in many cases requiring witnesses) that nothing can save the marriage. Women file the suit in over two-thirds of the divorce cases in Poland. The most common grounds are alcoholism, extramarital relationships, a spouse showing no interest in the family, physical cruelty, and situations that were formerly very uncommon, such as drug addiction. Nevertheless, Poland's divorce rate has doubled in recent years. One cause may be that the government changed the divorce law in 2004, making it easier, less time-consuming and cheaper for couples who wanted to separate. Experts point out that many of the estimated one million Poles who left their homeland in search of work after Poland joined the EU in 2004 also left a spouse behind. Long periods of separation have taken their toll on marriages.

Work-Life Balance

Young people have more egalitarian views than their elders about marriage and the division of labor. According to a “Social Diagnosis 2013,” Poles indicate that the two most important factors in the reconciliation of work and parental responsibilities are flexible working hours and better access to childcare (approximately 35%). With a total employment rate of 61.7% in 2014, female employment (55.2% in 2014) remains behind the EU-28 average of 59.6%. However, the employment rate for mothers of children under six (60.5% in 2014) was similar to the EU average (60.7% in 2014). It is a common observation that marriage and the arrival of children depress women’s earnings. Men, meanwhile, tend to earn more after having children, and studies show that employers see mothers as less committed to work and fathers as doubly committed to breadwinning. Unfortunately, a common question asked of a woman when she is hired is whether she plans to have children. Employers are afraid of hiring women aged 25-35, because Poland has generous maternity leave and family leave policies, and the cost of the benefits falls on the employers. The length of paid maternity and parental leaves for the birth of one child amounts to 52 weeks.

Pro-Family Policy

Polish couples have been deciding to have fewer children. Raising a child is considered to be expensive, although it is much less expensive in Poland than in the United States. According to a June 2016 report by the Polish Adam Smith Center, the average cost of raising a single child in Poland until he or she reaches age 19 is about $46,000, and the incremental costs of subsequent children are lower. The Adam Smith Center’s report argued that although good public services can reduce the cost of raising children, the essential step to raise the fertility rate is to stabilize the labor market, which would lead to less financial uncertainty.

One of the flagship promises of the ruling Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawedliwość, or PiS) during their electoral campaign was to boost fertility rates. In order to do this, the party promised to give Polish families a monthly allowance of 500 PLN ($125) for each second and subsequent child up to age 18, including those already born. The subsidy program was named “Family 500+” (Rodzina 500 plus).

The program is not going to be cheap. In 2016, Family 500+ cost 17 billion PLN ($4 billion) and benefited 3.8 million children in Poland. Many well-educated Poles are skeptical about the policy, which helped Law and Justice to win votes during the latest elections, because it is very expensive. The program has no maximum income threshold for recipients, so that all Polish parents, whatever their income, will be entitled to the subsidy. Opponents also stress the fact that the money is not necessarily spent on basic needs. Soon after the program began, there was a wave of advertisements offering smartphones, tablets and televisions that could be paid off at monthly rates covered by the 500+ annual subsidy.

Other Members of the Family

Poland’s demographic figures are appalling. As EURACTIV Poland reports, by 2050, 33% of Poland’s population will be over 65 years old, and 10% will be over 80, which approaches the figures for the whole European Union. Among the visible effects of an aging society are high medical costs and ineffective healthcare. For example, at present, there are 400,000 cases of Alzheimer’s disease in Poland, and in 2050, there will be over a million. Poland’s recent raising of the retirement age has sparked a discussion of this issue, because many people have to work and care for elderly parents simultaneously, and state support is not sufficient to cover the costs. In my family, for example, when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the whole family was engaged in looking after her in turns. This continued for several months, but when her condition deteriorated it became clear that she required professional care. My family could not afford to pay for home health care, so with great hesitation we finally decided to place her in a nursing home. There were no vacancies in any of the public care homes, so my parents found a private care home, where the fee (approximately $800 per month) was the equivalent of my mother’s salary. Although my parents were satisfied with the conditions, they had pangs of conscience that they were unable to take care of their own parent personally. Many other people their age face similar dilemmas.

The rise in the number of suicides in the over-55 age group may be connected with the aging of elderly parents. Poland is among the top six countries in Europe in this category. The European average is 18 suicide attempts per 100,000 people, while in Poland it is almost twice as high, with 29 attempts.

A common solution to the problem of elder care is hiring Ukrainian immigrants. The only necessary immigration document is a potential employer’s declaration of intent to offer a job, and a holder of such a declaration may work in Poland for six months without a permit. Ukrainians are by far the largest group of foreign workers in Poland, constituting at least 80 per cent of all registered employees from abroad. Women come as cleaning service workers and as daycare workers for children and the elderly. My second grandmother, who needs 24-hour care, is cared for by a revolving staff of Ukrainians on temporary work permits. Almost half of my parents’ friends hire somebody to look after their elderly parents.

Returning to the Future

The model of a Polish family in recent years has undergone dramatic change. It is debatable whether this is positive or negative. Some critics point out that the home stopped being a bedrock, a place where generations gathered. The members of the family are slowly drifting apart and shutting themselves into their own worlds. On the other hand, although the modern Polish family is more limited than it used to be, it seems that the present culture gives Poles many more choices than they used to have. They are free to order their lives according to their own rules and are not as constrained by family obligations. Nevertheless, in every survey about the most important values in their lives, Poles invariably put family in the first rank. The process of social transformation is unavoidable, but if the core of the culture, which is the system of values, remains stable, we should speak about an evolution rather than a revolution.

Meanwhile, in communist-ruled Eastern Europe, there was little, hardly any, or no memory of the Holocaust. Let me consider memorials to illustrate this statement. It is a fact that some outstanding and explicit Holocaust memorials were erected in some places in the region, notably the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw (1948) and the Memorial at the former death camp of Treblinka (1964). In some Holocaust sites, the communist authorities created, or allowed the remnant Jews to create, memorials; but these sites universalized or nationalized the murdered Jews, referring to them either as “victims” or “citizens,” respectively. Examples included the memorial in the Rumbula forest near Riga (1964) and the “International Monument to the Victims of Fascism” in the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The vast majority of the sites of the Holocaust, however, were not commemorated at all. The situation began to change following the demise of communism, and this is when Holocaust memory developed in Eastern Europe. The Europeanization of Holocaust memory was one the factors that contributed to this development.

“Europeanization” is commonly understood as the growth of a European polity and identity over and above national polities and identities on the continent of Europe in the course of the development of the European Union. The institutions of the EU are considered to be the major agents of this process. Since the early 1990s, this process has also included the development of a European memory of the Holocaust. This is what I refer to as the “Europeanization of Holocaust memory.” When that process was unfolding, it concerned the then EU member states and the countries of Eastern Europe that initially aspired to join the EU and eventually became the union’s members.

The EU institution that played the key role in the Europeanization of Holocaust memory is the European Parliament (EP). Between the early 1990s, when the process began, and 2004, when the first eight East European countries joined the EU, the EP adopted seven legally non-binding but politically significant documents—resolutions and declarations—dealing with various matters related to the Holocaust. After the first wave of Eastern enlargement, the EP adopted five more Holocaust-related documents. The matter that featured in most of them was the idea of “an annual European Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust to be instituted in all the Member States of the Union.” The EP indicated that January 27, the day on which the Auschwitz camp—a symbol, for many the symbol of the Holocaust—was liberated in 1945, would be that day. As the idea of a Holocaust remembrance day and the entire process of Europeanization of Holocaust memory became prominent in the EU during the preparation for Eastern enlargement, the EU assumed that the prospective new member states from the East would also institute a Holocaust remembrance day and would develop other aspects of Holocaust memory.

While the EP was Europeanizing Holocaust memory within the EU and the process was reaching out to Eastern Europe, in 1998 Sweden, a EU member since 1995, initiated the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF), now called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This organization, joined by many old EU member states such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom as well as Israel and the USA, became the major agent promoting Holocaust memory among its member countries and beyond. It also became a major agent of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe. Membership in the ITF/IHRA may be considered as an indicator of this process. By early 2016, the organization has 31 member countries, 11 of them from Eastern Europe—Poland since 1999; the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Lithuania since 2002; Latvia and Romania since 2004; Croatia and Slovakia since 2005; Estonia since 2007; Serbia and Slovenia since 2011. Four other East European countries declared their intentions to join the IHRA—Macedonia in 2009, Bulgaria in 2012, and Albania and Moldova in 2014. Thus, only five countries of the region—Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Ukraine—have so far not been involved.

As a result, Holocaust remembrance days and Holocaust memorials were instituted throughout the region. January 27, which was advocated by the EP and later also by the United Nations as international Holocaust remembrance day, was legislated in four out of 11 East European member states of the EU—Estonia (2002), Croatia (2003), the Czech Republic (2004), and Slovenia (2008), and was also instituted in two other countries of the region that are not EU members but aspire to join, Albania (2004) and Ukraine (2011). Five East European EU member states chose different days reflecting significant events related to the Holocaust that took place in those countries. Latvia chose July 4, the day in 1941 when Jews were burned alive in a synagogue in Riga, and has commemorated this day since 1990. In 1994, Lithuania instituted September 23, marking the liquidation of the ghetto of Vilnius in 1943. In 2000, Hungary legislated April 16, the day in 1944 of the establishment of the first ghetto in wartime Hungary (in Munkács – Мукачеве in present-day Ukraine), and the start of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. Since 2002, Bulgaria has observed March 10, the day in 1943 when the government and the public of the country prevented the deportations of its Jews. In 2004, Romania instituted October 9, marking the beginning of deportations of Jews to Transnistria by the Romanian authorities in 1941. In 2011, (the Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, a EU candidate, legislated March 11, the day in 1943 when the country’s Jews were deported to the death camp of Treblinka. Two other East European member states of the EU—Poland and Slovakia—and one EU candidate—Serbia—observe both January 27 and a day of national Holocaust significance. Poland has commemorated January 27 and April 19, the day in 1943 when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out, since 1946. These days were legislated as official Holocaust Remembrance Days in 2004 and 2005, respectively, following the Council of Europe’s and the UN’s decisions. Since 2000 Slovakia has celebrated September 9, the day in 1941 when the anti-Jewish laws were adopted by the wartime government of the country. Since 1992, Serbia has observed April 22, the day in 1945 when a group of inmates attempted to break out of the Ustaše-operated Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia. In 2006 it legislated January 27.

Dr. Magdalena Banaszkiewicz was visiting professor in the Skalny Center in Fall 2016. She is assistant professor at the Institute of Culture, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.