Introduction

The statutory right to a paid Maternity Leave was introduced in communist Poland in 1975. The 16 weeks of leave it initially guaranteed came in just above western standards. From the start, the leave was fully paid, covering 100 per cent of eligible employees’ previous (basic) earnings. During the first decade of Poland's political and economic transformation the length of paid Maternity Leave was not changed, as other socio-economic issues dominated the political agenda. It was extended to 20 weeks by a right-wing government in 2000, and to 26 weeks in 2001. However, a social democratic government assumed power later in 2001, and rolled Maternity Leave back to 16 weeks.

From 2006, when another right-wing party came to power, Maternity Leave was incrementally increased by two weeks until it again reached 20 weeks in 2009. From 2010 the centre-left coalition government of Civic Platform ( Platforma Obywatelska (PO)) and the Polish People's Party ( Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (PSL)) further extended it by means of an ‘additional Maternity Leave’ designed to grow incrementally by two weeks each two years until 2014, when the total amount of leave available to mothers would again reach 26 weeks. However, in 2013 the same coalition implemented a new, major reform of the leave system that doubled the total length of paid leave by introducing 26 weeks of paid Parental Leave on top of 26 weeks of paid Maternity Leave (see Figure 3.1); Maternity Leave is paid at 100 per cent of previous earnings and Parental Leave at 60 per cent, or these leaves can be combined into a one-year leave paid at 80 per cent. This reform pushed Poland into the group of EU countries with the most generous leave systems (OECD, 2017).

The first aim of this chapter is to explore the political drivers of the sudden, major reform in 2013. This is done using the multiplestreams approach (MSA) proposed originally by Kingdon (1984) and developed further by, among others, Zahariadis (2003; 2014). The MSA is one of the mainstream theoretical approaches used to study political processes. It is particularly useful in studying modern policy making that is characterised by ambiguity and time constraints (see for example, Zohlnhöfer et al, 2015), and also helps in explaining why and how some sudden, major policy decisions are made.