Gendering Poland’s Crisis Reforms: A Europeanization Perspective

Abstract

Poland's economic performance was exceptional in Europe when the crisis hit, yet there too, reforms adopted between 2009 and 2014 included a mix of labour market flexibilization and austerity. Was this a result of EU's top-down influence or was there a more complex Europeanization dynamic at play? Was gender effectively mainstreamed in the measures Poland adopted? A contextual perspective that locates Poland's response in the longer-term process of political-economic transition and its development plans reveals that the neoliberal policy mix the Civic Platform government favoured was in part inspired by the EU, but ultimately was consistent with national policy preferences. The reforms' dominant neoliberal frame also meant that only a narrow, market-oriented conception of equality was integrated into the anti-crisis provisions.