Our Dear Children: Gender Division of Market and Household Production and Transfers in the Low-Fertility Environment: Example of Poland

Agnieszka Chlon-Dominczak , Warsaw School of Economics
Marta Marszalek, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics

The gender division of market and household work remains unequal across the world. This is related in particular to childcare responsibilities. Therefore, reconciliation of work and family lives and broader engagement of women on the labor market is a challenge. We show, using the example of Poland, that low number of children does not lead to less time spent on childcare by parents, but results in higher consumption of childcare time per child. Therefore, the supply of women’s work on the market is not increased (as could be expected). This means that shrinking labor force due to the declining working age population can only to a limited extent be compensated by higher employment of women, unless further progress to equalize gender roles not only on the labor market, but also at the household level.

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 Presented in Session 102. Parenthood and Paid/Unpaid Work