How family duties influence participation in the labor market in Poland

According to Sturgeon[1], every day, 10,000 boomers turn 65 and over the next 30 years, the population of older adults will nearly double, growing from 48 million to 88 million in the USA, with the largest percentage increase among those 85 and older. Such a situation will profoundly impact families all across America. Here a question arises how close relatives such as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles should be protected and how the care and support for them should be arranged. It is quite obvious that mostly women, who are still the primary caregivers for children, aging spouses and aging parents, will be forced to cut back at their jobs or quit altogether.

According to the American Time Use Survey, about one quarter of women between 45 and 64 and one in seven between ages 35 and 44 are caregivers for older relatives. Caregiving can be a full-time job in itself, between meals, appointments, organizational tasks and providing company and support. Balancing this emotionally and physically taxing work on top of another job is no easy feat.

Ten percent of caregivers have to reduce their hours at work, and 6% are affected so much that they leave their job, says a National Association of Insurance Commissioners report. In the survey of 1,001 working women aged 45 to 60 who were caregivers; 9% of these women said their jobs were currently at risk due to their caregiving responsibilities. With these figures in mind, it’s no wonder more women are working less or not at all. Women can’t be expected to do it all. Porter noted that this trend will likely escalate.

The aim of the paper is the identification of the most important factors which affect the female and male participation the labor market in Poland. The research is provided on the basis of the data, originating from the Polish Labor Force Survey. In our analysis, we estimate econometric models, which are built for: the whole sample (7044 observations) and separately for women (3293 observations) and men (3751 observations). The models describe the number of working hours and salaries obtained by employees (in a month), which are explained by:

• individual characteristics of employee i.e. age, the level of education, place of living, occupation, working profile, number of children and elder members of family in the household;
• workplace characteristics such as type of industry, public/private sector, and size of enterprise.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-women-are-working-lessand-its-going-to-get-worse-2018-02-01