Introduction

How can we best understand the differences and similarities between welfare states, in particular the gender assumptions of governments and households? There is a wealth of literature on the question of how to compare welfare states and how to compare gender regimes as an aspect of welfare states, but little that deals directly with Central Europe and less with the impact on gender in these countries. The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 is primarily an enlargement to the east to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that have had very different social policy regimes from those in the west. How are the gender assumptions underlying social policies of former communist countries and households developing now? What light do theoretical debates about gender and welfare regimes throw on the countries that have recently joined Europe? What light do statistical data about social change in the new CEE member states of the European Union cast on these changing gender regimes: data on public expenditure and welfare spending; employment, especially women's employment, working conditions and preferences and working time; kindergartens and care?

It is important to examine Poland's situation amid the new CEE member states of the European Union and how Poland compares, in key dimensions, with countries of Western Europe. Our qualitative data explore the experience of gender in transition – in particular of key aspects of state responsibility for parenting, children and childcare – from the point of view of mothers in Poland. As noted in Chapter One, Poland is particularly important because its people form nearly half the population in the newly expanded European Union. But is Poland also typical of the other countries or is the trajectory of the emerging regimes different in important respects? To what extent has transition from communism brought common conditions and experiences and common responses from national governments? Has the 15 years since the end of communism and their accession to the European Union brought CEE countries nearer to western regimes? Should we think of the CEE countries as having a common experience in relation to gender or as going in diverse directions, towards different gender models? This chapter situates Poland within theoretical debates about welfare regimes and gender, and examines quantitative comparative data about the new CEE member states and the wider European Union.