Steven Saxonberg

Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe

Abstract This article examines the developments of family policies in four post-communist countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary). A general tendency has emerged of implementing familist, gendered policies that encourage women to leave the labor market to raise children. The interplay of the ideological, economic and institutional legacy of the communist past with new economic, social and political conditions coupled with shifts in values have greatly influenced these policies.

The Fall: : A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland

The fall : a comparative study of the end of communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland

Gendering Family Policies in Post-Communist Europe

Tato kniha poskytuje historicko-institucionalni analýzu vývoje rodinných politik v Ceske republice, Maďarsku, Polsku, Slovensku, Německu, Svedsku a Velke Britanii.

Seeking the Balance Between Work and Family after Communism

Summary During the 1990s the Central-European governments all took steps in varyingdegrees toward implementing more conservative, re-familization policies, which support women in their roles as mothers and make it more difficult for them to remain in the labor market. This article discusses the relationship between gender attitudes and gender policy in Central Europe and the latest changes in both. We focus on two countries, Catholic Poland, and the secular Czech Republic, in order to control for the role of Catholicism as an explanatory factor of familism. Beside statistical sources, administrative data and information from interviews with policy makers, we use data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1994 and 2002 on gender and family, analyzing them at both the micro and macro levels. Our study shows that post-communist re-familization policies are coming increasingly into contradiction with the needs and aspirations of the populace, which is becoming more positive towards gender equality.

Re-familisation of the Czech Family Policy and its Causes

In this paper we analyse the shift of family related policies (benefits, daycare services and labour market policies) from the state-socialist model toward re-familisation in the Czech Republic after 1989. We demonstrate that the policies negatively influence the possibilities for parents—and especially mothers—to balance work and family life. We concentrate on the question of why the government implemented such policies, despite their negative consequences. Our analysis indicates that the communist ideological legacy (disadvantageous conditions for ideology of feminism, poor experiences with the quality of daycare) and the communist economic legacy (pressures on the public budget) have played a major role in shaping post-communist family policies. Our analysis also indicates that this legacy may be beginning to break down as the policies of re-familisation are coming into conflict with the needs and aspirations of the population and policy makers become more and more forced to confront the fertility problem.

When do policies become path dependent? the Czech example:

This article asks the question of why some social policies can be path dependent, while others are not, even if the country goes through what clearly seems to be a ‘critical juncture’ caused by exogenous shocks. We argue that in the Czech Republic labour market policies represent a clear break with the past, while healthcare and family policies have been path dependent to various degrees. There are several reasons. First, during the first years of the transition policymakers gave greater priority to labour market issues. Second, labour market policies were less constrained than the other policy areas, both because the government had to create new institutions in this area rather than rely on old ones and because these new institutions had not yet built up popular support as the old institutions had. Third, labour policy was not as influenced by policy legacies.

Tensions in Family Policies in Post-Communist Central Europe

The communist regimes in Europe developed unique types of hybrid family policies, which combined relatively high access to childcare with parental leave schemes that promoted the male breadwinner model (Saxonberg, 2003b, 2011; Saxonberg and Sirovatka, 2006a,b; Saxonberg and Szelewa, 2007). Emphasis should be placed, however, on the term ‘relatively’, because access was much higher for kindergartens for children aged 3–5 than for nurseries for children aged 0–2, and even though access to nurseries in the 1950s and 1960s was still high by international standards, by the 1980s many Western European countries had surpassed the Central European countries in terms of access to day care for children under three.1 This chapter focuses on Czechoslovakia (which later divided into the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1993), Hungary and Poland. These countries have in common that they are all among the wealthiest, most industrialized and ‘Western’-oriented of the former communist countries, with the exception of East Germany, which represents a special case, since it re-united with West Germany and basically took over West Germany’s policies after the collapse of the communist-led regime. These countries also have historical similarities as they were all formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (although only part of Poland had been). At least among these countries, some differences emerged, although the availability of day care was always much lower in Poland than in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In all of these countries, some day care facilities were provided by the local municipal governments and some by enterprises.

Beyond the Transitology-Area Studies Debate

A combination of area studies and comparative social science approaches leads to rich studies of the transition to democracy.

The influence of presidential systems : Why the right is so weak in conservative Poland and so strong in the egalitarian Czech Republic

Institutions, not individuals, explain the diverging paths of political leadership in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Introduction : A new look at social movements and civil society in post-communist Russia and Poland

Introduction : A new look at social movements and civil society in postcommunist Russia and Poland