The open access book provides a critical account of parenthood in Polish society. It uses a qualitative perspective to show how mothers and fathers engage with parenthood and also function in the labour market. Parenting in contemporary Poland is not only affected by individual preferences and choices, but significantly by the institutional context, in particular the family policy system, as well as socio-cultural norms of how men and women should fulfill parental roles. The author distinguishes between different kinds of work done in connection to parenthood and shows how the existing institutional system reinforces gender and other forms of social inequalities even in a post-communist state like Poland. The author demonstrates that Polish society has different expectations and institutional norms related to work and gender norms compared to those in long-standing democracies in Europe and elsewhere. The book also shows that the experiences of parenthood in Poland are different between men and women, between single and coupled parents, and based on economic and other resources. This book is of interest to social science students and researchers of family studies, parenting, sociology of work, and social structure in post-communist societies.

This book is open access. Provides an in-depth study on parenting in Poland. Analyses parenting within the institutional context of post-communistic welfarism. Links individual to institutional factors in studying parenting

Autorentext

Katarzyna Suwada is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torü, Poland. She defended her PhD in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland in March 2015. She has published Men, Fathering and the Gender Trap. Sweden and Poland compared (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Currently, she is conducting research on parenthood experiences of Polish mothers and fathers. She is particularly interested in how they combine parental obligations with paid work in the context of gender and economic inequalities. Beside parenthood, her research focuses on masculinities, gender relations, the sociology of families, social inequalities, feminist theories and methodologies. She is an author of three books and multiple articles in sociological journals. She is a member of the executive board of the Research Network 13 "Sociology of families and intimate lives" of the European Sociological Association, a member of the executive board of the Section of Gender Sociology of the Polish Sociological Association. She is also an associate editor of the Journal of Family Studies.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Parenting, work and gender. Sociological perspective.- Chapter 3: Care work and parenting.- Chapter 4: Paid work and parenting.- Chapter 5: Domestic work and parenting.- Chapter 6: Conclusions: power relations and parenting.