Economic dimension of childcare in Poland in 2017-2018

When analysing the situation of women on the Polish labour market, it can be noticed that their lower professional activity may be the result of performing unpaid work for the benefit of the household (among others, childcare). Those who have decided to take a paid job must share their previous responsibilities with obligations arising from the employment relationship. Thanks to the extensive social benefits in Poland (care and maternity benefits, etc.), a working parent may be absent from work to look after the closest family member, but at the expense of basic pay for this period. The employee is entitled to an allowance for such care, but it is paid only to one parent. The aim of the presented study is to answer the question which parent will take care of the child and give up remuneration for this period? The structure of the article is as follows. The first part presents the general characteristics of benefits that are paid to working parents in Poland in case of birth/illness of a child. Then, descriptive analyses of inequalities in the amount of benefits paid to men and women were conducted in particular voivodeships in Poland in 2017-2018. The work ends with a summary. The applied research methods includeliterature review and data analysis made available by the Social Insurance Institution for the needs of this study