Women’s attitudes towards competing careers: can public policies increase fertility and women's labour force participation in Poland?

Anna Matysiak, Warsaw School of Economics
Monika Mynarska, Independent Researcher

In face of population ageing, an increase in women’s labour supply and fertility belong to one of the most important objectives on the EU policy agenda. Various researchers have shown that appropriate institutional and legal arrangements are an important condition for a successful reconciliation of motherhood and paid work. For an effective implementation of the policies it is, however, equally important to understand whether, for what reasons, and how women want to combine the two careers. The focus of this paper is on Poland. We explore women’s beliefs about, and attitudes and preferences towards the two competing activities: work and childbearing. In order to better address our questions, we analyse the recent survey data and complement the findings with the more in-depth, qualitative study. Based on the empirical findings the ultimate goal of the study is to formulate empirically grounded recommendations for the policies aimed at successful encouragement of fertility and female labour force participation.