In response to growing Western influences and a rapidly changing economy, many Polish women are delaying marriage, having fewer children, spending more of their energies at work, and generally asserting their independence.
Krystayna Kofta, writer for the leading women’s magazine, Twoi Style (Your Style), said of Poland’s women, “They want to break free. I can see it. Even if mothers cannot do it now, their daughters will.”
A Polish government report released in July reported that births among urban women aged 20-24 have dropped by 38% since 1989, and that the marriage rate has declined by 22 percent in urban areas. Polish Academy of Science professor Henryk Domanski, an expert on pay equity in Poland, stated that the gap between women’s and men’s pay declined from 35% in the early 1980s to 25% in the mid-1990s.
