Gender and labour in post-war communist poland: Female unemployment 1945-1970

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of female unemployment in Poland between 1945 and 1970 - the scale and reasons of the phenomenon and the attempts to eliminate it. The joblessness history is a pretext for showing the role of gender in the shaping of the labour market in the People's Republic of Poland. The general reason behind the difficulties faced by women in finding a job was that gainful employment, or career, was in the case of females perceived as secondary, and less productive. Women were to perform certain roles in the family, and there was a prevalent conviction that a number of jobs were inappropriate or inadequate for women.