Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist
Central Europe
STEVEN SAXONBERG* and TOMÁ Š SIROVÁ TKA**
*Uppsala University and Dalarna University College, Sweden, and Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic; **Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
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.
Introduction
When the communist walls came tumbling down, Central European women found
themselves in a historically unique situation. On the one hand, they experienced the
highest employment levels in the entire world, with only the Scandinavian social
democratic countries coming close. On the other hand, in contrast to the
Scandinavian countries, little discussion arose about the need for men to share in
the household and child-rearing chores. As a result, the household remained strictly
the domain of the woman (Gucwa-Les´ ny 1995: 128, Heinen 1997: 179). Under such
conditions the double burden of paid and unpaid work became particularly onerous.
Steven Saxonberg is an associate professor of political science in the Department of Government at
Uppsala University in Sweden. He is also a research associate at the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech
Republic, in the Faculty of Social Studies and a lecturer in the Department of Social Studies and Sociology
at Dalarna University College in Sweden. He has written two books, The Fall: A Comparative Study of the
End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland (Reading: Gordon & Breach,
2001), with a foreword by Seymour Lipset, and The Czech Republic Before the New Millennium (East
European Monographs/Columbia University Press, 2003). In addition, he has published articles in books
and scientific journals on such topics as welfare attitudes and attitudes toward gender, female
representation in post-communist parliaments, the collapse of the communist regimes, the development
of post-communist party systems and contemporary Czech politics. His journal publications include,
among others, Journal of Democracy, East European Politics and Society, European Societies, Problems of
Post-Communism, The Czech Sociological Review, and Journal of Marriage and the Family.
Tomá š Sirová tka is a professor of social policy and social work at the Masaryk University (Faculty of
Social Studies) in Brno, Czech Republic. His research focuses on social and labour market policies, social
exclusion and social inclusion. He has contributed to such journals as Czech Sociological Review, Prague
Economic Papers, Polish Sociological Review and Journal of Marriage and the Family. He has also edited
books in Czech on Czech social and labour market policy and contributed to several books abroad
(Townsend, P. and Gordon D. (Eds) New Policies to Defeat an Old Enemy, Bristol: The Policy Press 2002).
Correspondence Address: Steven Saxonberg, Uppsala University, Department of Government, Box 514,
751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Email: sax@post.utfors.se
Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis,
Vol. 8, No. 2, 185 ­ 202, June 2006
ISSN 1387-6988 Print/1572-5448 Online/06/020185-18  2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13876980600682089
Since virtually all women worked during the communist era and since a welldeveloped
system of childcare existed, one could imagine that the post-communist
regimes would follow the Swedish path of taking measures to encourage men to
share in raising children, which would make it much easier for women to pursue
careers and balance family and work. Rather than continuing down the path of defamilization
(Esping-Andersen 1999), by supporting gender equality in work as well
as the home (Saxonberg 2003) and considering both men and women simultaneously
as earners and carers (Sainsbury 1999), we show that the post-communist regimes
have all tried to reintroduce the traditional familization regime by inducing women
to return to the home as they move back toward the path of re-familization.1
Some
countries have explicitly supported re-familization (Hantrais 2003) by supporting
conservative family policies (Esping-Andersen 1990, Saxonberg 2003) that encourage
women to leave the labor market to raise children. Such policies approach
Sainsbury's (1999) model of separate gender roles. Other countries have rather
implicitly supported re-familization by backing market-liberal policies based on
means-tested family benefits and reliance on market solutions for daycare. Although
such policies are usually coded in general neutral terms, given the existing division of
household labor and the structural conditions on the labor market, these policies still
encourage women to take sole responsibility for raising children and come close to
Sainsbury's (1999) model of the male breadwinner.
The Re-familization of Family Policies
This section examines family policies by looking at three key areas that influence the
ability for women and men to balance work and family: childcare leave schemes, access
to daycare and labor market policies. We also compare the Central European countries
to Sweden and western Germany, as these two countries are usually considered
prototypes respectively for the social-democratic, de-familized, gender equality,
earner/carer model and the conservative, familized, separate gender role models.
Paid Family Leave
The Central European countries have two basic types of paid family leave: one is
maternity leave, which is insurance based, rather generous and reserved for the first
months of the infanťs life. Then each country has various types of parental leave,
which are not insurance based, less generous, but available for much longer periods
of time and open for fathers.
Maternity leave benefits have not changed much during the transformation. They
are available for 24­28 weeks except in Poland, where they are limited to 16 weeks (see
Table 1). The replacement rates are extremely generous and used to be 90 per cent
(Czech Republic and Slovakia) or 100 per cent (Poland and Hungary). However, in the
ensuing years the post-communist regimes have lowered the rates in every country but
Poland. In addition, all four countries have rather low ceilings, which guarantee that
the majority of mothers will receive even lower rates of replacement for lost earnings.
While maternity leave has remained relatively stable, the crucial change occurred
during the very first years of the transformation (1990­1992), when the new
post-communist governments extended the periods of parental leave, so that parents
186 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
Table1.Paidfamilyleave(2002)
MaternityleaveParentalleave
Levelin%ofaverage
wage(andabsolutein
EURandnational
currency)Length(weeks)ReplacementrateLength
Typeofbenefitand
benefitformula
Mainchanges
during1990s
Czech
Republic
28(37multiple
births)
69%ofdaily
assessment
base,lowceiling
4yearsUniversal1.1x
MSLofadult
person(1.54
MSLsince
2004)
14.9%e82.6(2,552
CZK)since2004
increasedto
e115.7
(3,573CZK)
parentalleave:
benefitlevelan
lengthincreased
Hungary2470%lowceilinga)2years(if
fulfillingsocial
insurance
condition-child
carefee),b)3
years,c)8years
(thirdchildren)
Universala)70%
ofwage,ceiling
2xminwage,
b),c)minold
agepension
22.8%e82.6
(20,100HUF)
maternityleave:
benefitlevel
decreased
Poland16(18second
child,20
multiplebirths),
2(4weeks)may
beusedby
father
100%lowceiling4yearsIncome­tested
Explicit(low
level)
15%e83.3
(318.1PLN)
23.9%e132.4
(505.8PLN)
incaseoflone
parent
parentalleave:
extendedto
men,benefit
levelincreased
forfamilies
with3(ormore)
children
Slovakia28(37multiple
births)
90%ofdaily
assessmentbase
lowceiling
(since200455%)
3yearsUniversal0.913
MSLofadult
person
29.6%e88.8
(3,790SK)
parentalleave:
benefitlevelan
lengthincreased
Germany14(18multiple
births)
100%3yearsIncome-tested
Choice:
e30724months/
e46012months
11.1%parentalleave
implemented
(continued)
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 187
Table1.(Continued)
MaternityleaveParentalleave
Levelin%ofaverage
wage(andabsolutein
EURandnational
currency)Length(weeks)ReplacementrateLength
Typeofbenefitand
benefitformula
Mainchanges
during1990s
Swedenmaternityleave
includedin
statutory
parentalleave
1.5year(60days
foreachparent,
sharingtherest)
Universal
(insurance
based)80%of
salaryfirst390
days(upto7.5
timesthebasic
incomelevel),
e6.6(60SEK)
next90days
(80%)min.e16.4
(150SEK)perday,
thisise500per
month
``papamonth''
implemented
Note:MSLminimumsubsistencelevel.
Sources:MISSCEECandMISSOC(2004),availableathttp://europa.eu.int/comm./employment_social/missceec/missoc;wagesbyOECD2002
(TaxingWages.SpecialFeature:TaxingFamilies);COM2003(358)final:EIRO2003,owncalculations.
188 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
can remain at home with their children another 3­4 years. The post-communist
governments extended parental leave to men; however, it was clear that they did not
expect any men to actually utilize this right (Castle-Kanerova 1992: 113). In Poland,
men did not even gain the right to take parental leave until 1996, when it succumbed
to EU pressure (Wiktorow 1996: 28, Nowakowska and Swedrowska 2000: 49).
Moreover, the benefit level for extended leave is so low in all four countries that, given
the fact that fathers usually have higher incomes than mothers, few men can afford to
take advantage of their right to parental leave. As Table 1 shows, parental benefit has
remained at the low level of 15 per cent to 30 per cent of gross average wage.
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, these benefits are universal, but paid in a
lump sum regardless of income. This combination of a long leave period with low
benefit rates constitutes an explicit re-familization policy, which promotes separate
gender roles for men and women, since few men will be willing to utilize their right to
parental leave under these conditions (Gornick and Meyers 2003: 112, 145, 242
discuss this for Western Europe).
In Poland parental leave benefits are means tested and restricted to those earning
less than the social subsistence minimum. The neutral manner and liberal method of
means testing constitutes a more implicit re-familization policy.
Hungary provides a slight exception to the general trend. The conservative first
post-communist government (1990­1994) kept a relatively generous two-year
parental leave, which the government strangely calls a childcare fee. It pays 70 per
cent of the recipienťs wage, although it is limited to a level of twice the minimum
wage. In addition, parents can also receive a flat-rate benefit for up to three years.
This ceiling on parental benefits called childcare fees gives the model an explicit
familization character that promotes separate gender roles. However, since it gives
the greatest encouragement among the Central European countries for men to take
parental leave, it also contains some elements of the gender equality, earner/carer
model. Although the socialist government cancelled the childcare fee, the next
conservative government reinstated it.
Daycare
At the same time that the post-communist regimes have extended parental leave,
they have also radically reduced state aid to nursery schools for 0­3 year olds. In
addition, they have transferred responsibility for running them to the local
authorities. The local authorities in turn have increased the enrolment fees and
closed down most of the nurseries.
From 1989, the number of nursery schools dropped dramatically in Slovakia and
in the Czech Republic, while in Poland their number was already low (see Table 2).
Once again, Hungary provides the exception, as the percentage of children in nursery
schools decreased by little more than one per cent.
In the communist countries children could attend nursery schools until they
reached three years, after which they could attend kindergarten until they reached six
or seven (depending when they were enrolled in primary school). As Table 2 shows,
in the absence of nursery schools after 1989, Czech and Slovaks have increasingly
turned to kindergartens. However, although kindergartens are allowed to accept
children under three, they are not obligated to take them and their decision depends
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 189
on the particular schooĺs economic situation and capacity. This tendency to seek
places in kindergarten for younger children indicates that a demand still exists for
daycare for children under three.
While enrollment rates have radically declined for nursery schools, they have
remained high for 3­6 year olds attending kindergarten, except for in Poland. This
combination of long parental leave and lack of access to daycare for children under
three makes it difficult for women to combine work and careers.
Thus, all four countries have encouraged the re-familization of society. The Czech
Republic and Slovakia have done so explicitly, by incorporating the conservative,
separate gender role model, based on a combination of low level lump-sum benefits for
parental leave and inadequate support for daycare. Meanwhile, Poland has followed a
more liberal, implicitly familization model, in which most families cannot receive parental
leave benefits, the state does not support access to nursery schools and gives low
levels of support to kindergartens. This rather free-market policy supports the malebreadwinner
model by inducing women to return to the home, since fathers cannot
afford to take parental leave and mothers cannot easily find daycare for their children.
Table 2. Enrollment rates of children in public pre-school facilities
1989 2002
birth to age
two (0­1­2)
age three to
five (3­4­5)
birth to age
two (0­1­2)
age three to
five (3­4­5)
Czech Republic 20.3 (13.2% in
nurseries)
78.9% 10.3% (0.7% in
nurseries)
94.7%
Hungary 11.7% (11.2% in
nurseries)
85.7% 10.1% (9.6% in
nurseries)
87.8%
Poland 9.1% (8.7% in
nurseries)
48.2% 5.1% (4.2% in
nurseries)
49.9%
Slovakia 17.7% (15% in
nurseries)
88.6% 5.6% (0% in
nurseries)
80.1%
Germany (in 2000) 5% 82%
Sweden (in 2000) 37% 77%
EU-15 (in 2000) 25% 81%
Notes:
1) In post-communist countries, children in pre-school facilities, who do not attend nursery
schools attend kindergarten as kindergartens are allowed to accept children 2­3 years old if
there is capacity and there is adequate staffing. There is a guaranteed right to attend
kindergarten for children one year before entering primary school. In Hungary the guarantee
includes all children over 5 years.
2) When computing enrolment rates for children in post-communist countries we only include
children over 5 months, because maternity leave covers approximately this period so no
children are in nurseries.
3) We have created an estimate of enrolment rates for children 0­1­2 based on data by Gornick
and Meyers (2003: 204­205) for Germany, Sweden and EU-15 (average for 9 countries where
data available ­ AUT, BE, DK, FI, FR, GER, LUX, NE, SWE). This estimate is computed from
data for children 1­2 which are provided by Gornick and Meyers and our own rough estimate of
5% for children 3­12 months or other information available in some cases. If lower enrolment
rates for children 0­1­2 are reported for specific cases compared to our estimate we accept these
reported enrolment rates.
Sources: Own calculations based on MONEE database 2004, Gornick and Meyers (2003) own
calculations, and for the Czech Republic, Vývojová rocenka školství v ČR 2003, ÚZIS 2003.
190 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
Although Hungary basically follows the conservative, explicitly re-familization
path, it does not support separate gender roles as strongly as in the Czech Republic
and Slovakia, since it gives fathers greater incentives to stay at home and it provides
greater access to nursery schools.
Labor Market Policies
Labor market policies can improve the possibilities of balancing work and family by
making it easier to work part-time, so that parents ­ especially mothers ­ can choose
to spend more time with their children rather than send them to daycare for extended
periods. In Western Europe, where labor markets are more flexible, many married
women work part-time (Sainsbury 1996: 108, Vleminckx 2002). Moreover, since
daycare is not readily available in Central European countries for children under
three, mothers are even more likely to want to work part-time until their children
begin kindergarten, in order to keep a foot in the labor market and to supplement
their family incomes.
So far, the Central Europe governments have not followed the Council Directive
98/23/EC and passed legislation giving parents of young children the ability to
enforce their right to work part-time. Nor have they introduced tax incentives or
other measure to make part-time work easier. Thus, except for Poland, where young
mothers can often count on the help of their parents in taking care of the children
(Siemienska 1994, Dabrowska-Caban 1997), women work part-time much less than
in Western Europe (see Table 3).
Post-communist labor market policies also make it difficult for women to return to
work after having been on parental leave for several years. Although one has a legal
Table 3. Employment impact of parenthood and part-time work (2002) in percentages
Part-time
work
(% of total
employment)
Employment
impact of
parenthood
Women's
employment
share
(% of total
employment)
Women's
unemployment
share
(% of total
employment)
Employment
rate ­ women
aged 15­64
1994­2002
in two points
of timeMen Women Men Women
Czech
Republic
1.4 4.9 8.7 741.8 43.6 54.8 66.2­57.1
Hungary 1.7 4.3 7.1 735.1 45.1 41.0 41.9­49.8
Poland 7.1 16.7 12.8 712.5 45.4 48.3 51.9­46.4
Slovakia 1.0 2.3 7.6 729.7 45.7 46.4 52.4­51.4
Germany 5.5 35.3 7.9 721.4 44.6 43.3 55.0­58.8
Sweden 7.5 20.6 ­ ­ 48.0 44.3 70.6­73.4
EU-15 6.1 30.0 9.5 712.6 43.1 49.1 49.1­55.8
Note: employment impact of parenthood  absolute difference in employment rates of men
and women without children and with a child aged 0­6 in age group 20­50. Part-time
employment refers to persons who usually work less than 30 hours per week in their main job.
Sources: Employment impact of parenthood ­ EC 2004; part-time work ­ OECD 2003;
women's employment share ­ EC 2003 (and own calculations); women's employment rate OECD
1999 and 2003 and OECD LFS database for SK in 1994, available at http://www1.
oecd.org/scripts/cde/members/lfsdataauthenticate.asp.
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 191
guarantee to return to one's job after parental leave, the post-communist
governments have not enforced it. This contributes to a widespread feeling of
insecurity among women, as employers often lay off mothers returning from their
parental leave (Steinhilber 2003: 321). Like other vulnerable groups in the labor
market, mothers also suffer because positive labor market policies are much less
widespread in post-communist countries than in the EU. Expenditure on measures
like training or job subsidies are about 0.5 per cent of GDP in Hungary and Slovakia
and less than 0.2 per cent of GDP in the Czech Republic and Poland while in EU
countries the average is above 1 per cent (OECD 2003).
The Ideological Legacy and Reform
Many observers have claimed that the anti-feminist ideological legacy from the
communist era has strongly influenced post-communist family policies. However,
this legacy is similar for all four countries, and thus cannot explain the differences in
policies. Rather, we see the ideological legacy as providing a certain atmosphere in
which policy decisions were made, but the differences in the policies pursued among
the four countries come from the differences in their economic and institutional
legacies. The ideological legacy influences both the ideological climate and the ability
for women to organize around their interests.
The Ideological Climate
Under communist rule, the term ``feminism'' became blemished, because the former
regime claimed to support gender equality (see, for example, Fuszara 1991, 1994,
Robinson, 1995, Siemenska 1994). However, in reality, the communist regimes
continued to support traditional gender roles, although almost all women had to
work. Thus, it was extremely rare for women to reach influential positions in
political or economic organizations. Meanwhile, women continued to have full
responsibility for the household chores and childrearing. Consequently, the Czech
sociologist, Č ermá ková (1997: 391), observes that a gender contract emerged during
the communist era, in which virtually all women worked, but only men had careers.
Instead, women accepted lower positions and lower salaries than men, so that they
could balance work and family.
Moreover, in contrast to Western Europe, where women fought for the right to
work, the communist regimes forced women to work whether they wanted to or not.
Consequently, some women experienced work as state exploitation rather than a
move toward liberalization. Thus, many women's organizations in the early 1990s
made the right for women to stay at home and be housewives one of their main
demands (Wolchik 1995, Saxonberg 2001a, 2003).
Inability to Organize
The communist regimes only allowed one official, state-controlled women's
organization to exist, which prevented women from organizing around their
interests. Consequently, no women's organizations could pressure the communist
regimes into adapting de-familization policies. The absence of a women's movement
192 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
meant that no organizations could induce women themselves to support gender
equality. During the first half of the 1990s, feminism remained a dirty word (Š iklová
1998, Saxonberg 2003). Women's organizations in Central Europe have continued to
be rather weak, although some evidence indicates that they are beginning to grow
stronger (the articles in Flam 2001, Saxonberg 2003).
Thus, the anti-feminist ideological legacy continues to influence policies in a
familist direction, as policymakers themselves tend to hold anti-feminist values and
support policies that encourage women to stay at home. Meanwhile, this antifeminist
legacy also inhibits the emergence of a women's movement that could
challenge these moves and gain public support for gender equality.
The Economic Legacy of the Communist Past
Although the anti-feminist ideological legacy provides a backdrop in which
policymakers considered strategies over family and gender issues, the economic
legacy had the immediate effect of forcing these policymakers to make some quick
decisions. In 1989, all four countries originally faced some type of economic crisis
after over a decade of decline and stagnation (for example Saxonberg 2001b).
Budgetary pressures coming from economic crisis convinced the governments that it
was necessary to cut social spending (for example Pestoff 1995, Standing 1996).
Under these circumstances it was easy to conclude that re-familization policies would
be cheaper than de-familization policies, which tend to require rather generous state
support. Thus, for example, in all four countries the governments made cutbacks in
funding for nursery schools, but increased the length of extended parental leave,
partially because they thought that they would save money (for example Potů cek
1999: 108). This is obviously especially true in the Polish case where extended
parental leave was income-tested.
The economic legacy also helps explain differences in family policies. For example, the
two countries that went the farthest with introducing income-testing (Poland and
Hungary)werealsothetwocountriesthatinherited thegreatestforeigndebtsand budget
deficits from the communist era. At the time of the transformation, inflation rates were
also extremely high in both countries and in the Polish case even approaching
hyperinflation (Saxonberg 2001b). Thus, these two countries faced the greatest pressure
to cut costs. This difference in economic pressures can help explain why the socialist
government in Hungary felt forced to introduce income-testing for further parental
leaves and the social governments in Poland (1993­1997, 2001­present) have kept
income-testing intact, while the market-liberal Klaus government in the Czech Republic
(1993­1997) kept the extended parental leave benefits universal. Nevertheless, the legacy
of communist economics is losing its influence over time as economic development
becomes less dependent on communist era developments. Thus, when the conservative
Young Democratic government came to power in Hungary in 1998 they reinstated the
previous more generous system with income related benefits.
The Institutional Legacy
The post-communist countries share a peculiar institutional arrangement inherited
from the communist era, in which two different institutions under the control of two
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 193
different ministries have provided day care. While the ministry of education has
responsibility for the kindergartens (for 3­6 year olds), the ministry of health has
responsibility for nursery schools (for 0­3 year olds). Reforms in the 1990s officially
gave responsibility to the local municipalities for running nursery schools, but the
ministry of health still remains the supervisory body. To make matters even more
complicated, yet another ministry (the ministry of labor and social affairs, or in
Hungary the ministry of social and family affairs) has responsibility for maternity
and parental leave benefits. This type of institutional arrangement makes it difficult
to introduce de-familization policies, which require more comprehensive planning
(coordination between nursery schools, kindergartens, parental leave insurance etc.).
Market liberal policies, in contrast, require little governmental planning and
coordination, while more conservative policies at least do not place the same
demands on providing comprehensive childcare services.
In addition, the fact that the ministry of health has had responsibility for nursery
schools, and even now personnel are nurses, sends a clear signal to parents: they
cannot expect their children to receive qualified care, since the personnel do not have
any training in pedagogy and psychology. Instead, the authorities look upon these
children as health problems! Therefore, it is hardly surprising that nursery schools
have poor reputations in Central Europe (Heitlinger 1996, Go¨ tting 1998: 228) and
home care has been emphasized as superior to them in public discourse.
Not only can the institutional legacy from the communist era help explain the
general move toward re-familization, it can also help explain the differences among
the countries. Thus, Poland is the only country that has means-tested extended
parental leave, which represents a continuation of the communist policies, as this
benefit was means tested from the date of its incorporation in 1982 (BalcerzakParadowska
1991: 48). Given the country's debt crisis, not even social democratic
governments have tried to replace an institutionalized income-tested policy with a
more expensive universal benefit.
Meanwhile, Hungary, which had the relatively generous income-based childcare
fee in the communist era, succumbed to economic pressures arising from the
communist economic legacy and replaced the childcare fee with an income-tested
benefit. However, after the economy began improving and the communist economic
legacy lost some of its influence, the government decided to re-institute the
communist-era childcare fee rather than introduce a new kind of parental leave
benefit.
``Exiť' and the Failure of Post-Communist Family Policies
Now that we have explained why family policies have generally moved toward refamilization,
we can analyze the manner in which these policies interact with the
needs and aspirations of the population. Here, we find that Havelková 's (1996)
differentiation between abstract and concrete citizenship is extremely usual for
analyzing post-communist societies. She defines abstract citizenship as ``an image of
the system into which certain ideals are projecteď' (Havelková , 1996: 248).
Meanwhile, concrete citizenship is ``the attitudes that are rooted in the concrete
knowledge and experiences of the individual within a particular social or political
system'' (Havelková , 1996: 248).
194 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
In the context of gender roles, we observe that because of the anti-feminist
communist legacy, citizens of post-communist countries (including women) tend to
be rather skeptical toward abstract, more theoretical feminist arguments concerning
power relations in society and the ideal roles for men and women in society.
However, at the concrete level, based on everyday experiences of balancing work and
family, post-communist citizens (especially women) are much more supportive of
increased equality. In other words, women have not been particularly engaged in
debates about political power, power relations or notions about gender roles in
society, but they are interested in increasing their possibility of having a career and
they are also interested in achieving a more balanced division of labor within their
own household.
We should note that although we use the terms ``abstract feminism'' and ``concrete
feminism'' in line with Havelková 's model, we are aware that many different kinds of
feminisms exist. We are following the dominant tradition within Scandinavia in using
``feminism'' to designate support for gender equality, particularly the equality of or
elimination of gender roles, which is not to deny that many feminists have other goals.
Abstract Feminism
The two most recent ISSP surveys on Gender and Family Roles from 1994 and 2002
provide data for comparing attitudes on abstract and concrete gender issues. The
surveys were basically based on random samples, with some minor exceptions (see
ISSP 2002 for details). Unfortunately, only one question posed in the ISSP survey is
useful for measuring attitudes toward gender equality at the normative, abstract level.
Respondents were asked whether they agree that ``a man's job is to earn money; a
woman's job is to look after the home and family''. This statement is ``abstracť' in the
sense that it asks about one's ideals as to what general roles men and women should
have in society, rather than asking about concrete issues in the respondents' daily life.
As Figure 1 shows, a great gap exists between the post-communist countries and the
West European countries on the theoretical issue of what the role of women and men
should be in society. Among the post-communist countries, only 25­35 per cent
disagree that ``a man's job is to earn money; a woman's job is to look after the home
and family'', while in conservative, familist western Germany over 61 per cent
disagree and in social democratic, de-familist Sweden nearly 78 per cent disagree.
Among the 11 western EU countries participating in the survey, nearly 65 per cent
disagreed with the statement. This lack of support for gender equality at the abstract,
theoretical level can explain why the post-communist governments could pursue refamilization
policies without meeting much political protest. Nevertheless, it is worth
noting that support for abstract feminism is increasing in all countries that
participated in the last two surveys, which means that the potential is increasing
for women to organize around feminist issues.
Concrete Feminism
Even if the majority of post-communist citizens still reject abstract feminist ideas
about power and gender roles in society, at the concrete level questions exist about
both the needs and aspirations of the population.
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 195
On the issue of needs, the 1994 ISSP survey asks whether women must work in
order to support the family. Although Slovakia did not participate in the survey,
among the other three countries over 92 per cent of women answered in the
affirmative. Thus, even if some women might have wanted to return to the home,
virtually all of them believed that working was a financial necessity. Unfortunately,
the 2002 survey did not repeat this question. Nevertheless, among female
respondents 88 per cent of Czechs, 74 per cent of Poles, 80 per cent of Hungarians
and 83 per cent of Slovaks think that both members of the family should contribute
to the family income, which in practice means that they believe that women should
work at least part-time. Post-communist women believe that they must and should
work to support their families, whether they really want to work or not.
In order to examine attitudes toward family and gender relations in more detail,
we conducted confirmatory factor analysis and found that at the concrete, daily
level, attitudes toward gender roles have three dimensions: household equality,
mother/child relations and state support for families (see Figure 2).
The results show that important differences in attitudes only exist for the second
factor, mother/child relations. On the issue of household equality, post-communist
Figure 1. Percentage disagreeing that men should work and women should stay at home
Note: for 1994 the ISSP survey includes the following EU countries: Western Germany
(n  2324), Great Britain (n  984), Sweden (n  1272), Austria (n  977), Italy (n  1018), the
Netherlands (n  1968), Ireland (n  938) and Spain (n  24949. Slovakia did not participate in
the survey that year. For the Czech Republic n  1024, H  1500 and Poland n  1597.
For the 2002 ISSP survey includes the following western EU countries: Western Germany
(n  936), Great Britain (n  1960), Sweden (N  1080), Austria (n  2047), the Netherlands
(n 1249), Ireland (n 1240), Spain (n 2471), Portugal (n 1092), Flanders (Belgium) (n 1360),
France (n  1903) and Denmark (n  1379). Italy did not participate in the survey that year. For
the Czech Republic n  1289, Hungary n  1023, Poland n  1252 and Slovakia n  1133.
For calculating the EU-West average, we counted each country equally regardless of the
number of respondents, so that those countries with more respondents did not influence the
average more than those with fewer respondents.
Source: ISSP 1994, 2002.
196 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
citizens are no less supportive of concrete feminism than West Europeans. In fact,
Czechs and Poles are even more likely than West Europeans to argue that men
should do a larger share of the household and childcare work.
It is also interesting that respondents in the post-communist countries are
extremely positive toward state support for families and they are more supportive
than those in the Western European countries. Poland provides the one exception, as
Poles are less favorable to state support than western Germans, but more so than
Swedes. Part of the difference in responses could be because of the unfortunate
wording in the survey that asks about maternity leave rather than paternal or
Figure 2. Percentage supporting gender equality
Note: for EUW the same 11 western EU countries are included as in Figure 1.
Note on the factors (where ``men''  male respondents and ``women''  female respondents):
HOME EQ  Household Equality, measured by two questions: 1) the percentage agreeing that
men should do a larger share of the household work; and the percentage agreeing that men
should do a larger share of child caring.
CHILD REL  Mother/Child Relations, measured by three questions: 1) Percentage agreeing
that working mothers can have warm relations with their children; 2) percentage disagreeing
that pre-school children suffer if their mother works; 3) the percentage disagreeing that ``What
women really want is home & kids''.
STATE SUPPORT  State Support to Families, measured by two questions: 1) the percentage
agreeing that working women should be paid maternity leave; and 2) the percentage agreeing
that working parents should receive financial benefits.
Sometimes we counted the percentage disagreeing with a statement rather than agreeing with it,
so that we would always measure the percentage of those who are most supportive of gender
equality. The factors were testing using confirmatory factor analysis in Amos 5. All of the
factors for all the countries met the minimum conditions of RMSEA 5 .05, AGFI and
GFI 4 .92.
Source: ISSP 2002.
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 197
parental leave. Nevertheless, the results are still interesting, because they show that
little support exists for the liberal, means-tested implicit familized policies which the
post-communist governments have pursued in Poland and which the first socialist
government pursued in Hungary (from 1994 to 1998).
The one factor where Central Europeans are clearly more conservative than
Western Europeans is mother/child relations. Here the negative legacy of the
communist nursery schools loom. For even if women feel that they must work for
financial reasons and even if many women want to work in order to pursue the new
career opportunities that opened up with the collapse of communism, they still fear
that the state cannot provide high quality daycare for young children. Instead of
using the ``voice'' option, parents have willingly abandoned the nursery schools and
quietly tried to get their children placed in kindergartens.
The survey also indicates that Central Europeans are starting to rethink the issue
of daycare, as the percentage of those believing that mother/child relations will not
suffer has increased in all of the countries compared to the 1994 survey. Moreover,
regression analysis for the factor mother/child relations shows that in all four
countries, age and educational level significantly influence the belief that mothers can
work without harming their relationship with their children (see Figure 2 for a listing
questions for each factor). The more educated one is and the younger one is, the
greater one's belief that mothers can work without damaging their children. This
means we can expect support for working women to increase, since educational
levels are rising in all four countries, thanks to a sharp increase in the number of
colleges and universities. Meanwhile, the generational factor indicates that the newer
generation is more supportive of the working women than previous ones and we can
expect this trend to continue.
Conclusion: The ``Wrong'' Kind of Exit
We have shown that in contrast to recent trends in Western Europe, the postcommunist
countries have explicitly or implicitly tried to persuade women to leave
the labor market by pursuing re-familization policies. EU accession has not greatly
influenced policies in the fields of part-time work and childcare, which have been
largely neglected. The EU's main influence so far has only been on the rather formal
incorporation of EU legislation on equal treatment in employment and pay.
As Table 3 shows, the cost of childbearing is quite high for women, as their
position in the labor market significantly decreases once they have children, while
the position of men actually improves. In addition, this decrease is much higher
than the EU average. However, our discussion of attitudes shows that women feel
that they must work whether they want to or not. In addition, although support for
abstract, theoretical feminism is rather low (but increasing), great support exists for
gender equality at the concrete, daily level. The lack of support for theoretical
feminism has hindered the emergence of a strong feminist movement that could
challenge the re-familization policies. Rather than choosing ``voice'' by organizing
politically, Central European women have largely chosen ``exiť', by refusing to
have babies. Rather than leaving the labor market, they have quite simply left the
reproductive market. Thus the change in women's employment rates has been
rather modest as female employment as a share of total employment has remained
198 S. Saxonberg and T. Sirovátka
rather high (see Table 3). Women comprise a higher share of unemployed than they
do of employed (except for Hungary, where female inactivity rate is still extremely
high). This indicates that women generally face a higher risk of unemployment then
men.
As Figure 3 shows, in the 1980s fertility rates were much higher in the Central
European countries than in Western Europe. One year after the communist regimes
fell, fertility rates were still higher than in conservative, familist Germany.
Throughout the decade birthrates fell by around half and now are lower than in
Germany. Meanwhile, fertility rates have been rising in Sweden after an initial fall
during its economic crisis in the 1990s.
The fact that fertility rates could rise in Sweden, while declining in the postcommunist
countries and conservative, familist Germany, indicates that the familist
policies constitute a major cause of the decline. If the decline were merely part of a
general international trend, then fertility rates could not increase in Sweden. We do
not deny that the economic crisis also played a role as living standards decreased for
many families. However, the economic crisis did not cause declining birth rates
during the communist era, when policies were less familist. In addition, in contrast to
Sweden, fertility rates have not increased in the post-communist countries during
periods in which economic conditions have improved. So, as Strohmeier (2002: 351)
notes, family policies do influence fertility rates.
Figure 3. Fertility rates
Source: EUROSTAT 2004, available at http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid
1996,39140985&_dadportal&_schemaPORTAL&screendetailref&languageen&product
Yearlies_new_population&rootYearlies_new_population/C/C1/C12/cab12048
Failing Family Policy in Post-Communist Central Europe 199
The Central Europe countries contradict Esping Andersen et al.'s (2002) and
Castles' (2003) observations that the previously negative correlation between fertility
rates and employment rates has transformed into a positive correlation. Postcommunist
women exhibit persistently high employment, while their fertility rates
have dropped radically. However, our results confirm Castles' conclusion about the
causal mechanism: the employment prospects of women greatly influence family
formation, because values have changed. Today women believe that they have the
same right and need to work as men and that they must combine having children
with the demands of working life.
Similarly, our findings support McDonalďs (2000a, 2000b) incoherence theory.
He shows that in the industrially advanced countries the conflict between norms
supporting high levels of gender equity in individual-oriented social institutions (like
education system and labor market) and sustained gender inequality in familyoriented
social institutions (in caring and nurturing and household maintenance) has
caused fertility rates to drop. Post-communist family policies have increased rather
than dampened this conflict.
Acknowledgments
This study was written with the support of the Czech Ministry of Education (project
MSM 0021622408 ``Reproduction and Integration of the Society'').
Note
1. Re-familization differs from familization in that familization policies are the general policies that a
regime pursues, while re-familization connotes a direction. It implies that a country that once has
carried out policies which to some extent have deviated from familization policies has now moved back
toward policies that encourage increased familization.
As Hantrais (2003: 204) writes about post-communist countries: ``Family policy can be said to have
been refamilialised. This does not mean that formal institutional structures for managing family policy
are non-existent, or that they are not legitimised. It does mean they are underfunded, that support for
families is often rhetorical rather than practical and that the state is not trusted to deliver good quality
and reliable services.''
We use the term ``re-familization'' because before the war the Central European Countries pursued
familist conservative social policies. Their policies were based on the conservative Bismarckian model: all
family benefits were insurance-based including maternity benefits which were a part of sickness insurance
that depended on the woman's employment record. Maternity benefits were limited to mothers and were
only paid for 12 weeks (24 weeks in Hungary) at a replacement rate of 100 per cent (50 per cent in Poland).
These countries did not introduce child benefits until after the war (except Hungary, where child
allowance for state servants and low income groups existed in the pre-war period, and in Czechoslovakia,
where they were only available for civil servants), and child care services did not exist. All in all,
childbearing costs as well as child care have been assumed to be completely a family responsibility while
caring duties were imposed on women due to the predominating male breadwinner model of the family.
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