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In this paper, we present the results of financial knowledge assessment from a nationwide survey carried out in Poland in 2019. To measure this phenomenon, we use the well-grounded scale, the ‘Big ...

Economic resourcefulness indirectly affects many aspects related to the functioning of individuals on the market. One of the crucial areas is making financial decisions related to the allocation of...

This chapter presents the issue of underemployment affecting highly educated Poles. It analyzes the extent of underemployment in the Polish labor market and its effect on such factors as income stability, job satisfaction, or life satisfaction. The gender aspect of underemployment (whether women are more likely to be underemployed than men, or vice versa) is also analyzed.

The amount of income earned, wealth and position in the labor market are determined by many factors. Numerous analyses indicate that these characteristics depend on, among others, gender, education, type of work and place of residence. The indicated factors, however, describe individual areas, which significantly hinders the comprehensive analysis and identification of the real determinants. In this context, the purpose of our analysis is to identify and characterize the concept of economic resourcefulness as a key factor conditioning people’s effectiveness functioning on the market, managing the resources they possess, and having the ability to guarantee the economic security of their families. The empirical part of the analysis was carried out on data from a dedicated study conducted in Poland in 2016. Due to the design of the sample, the data from the study will identify the level of resourcefulness for groups of people that differ with respect to the respondents’ age and experiences related to Poland’s political transformation.

New solutions in the field of childcare under the age of 3 were introduced in Poland in 2011. This article, based on a survey conducted among Wroclaw families, provides arguments for the thesis that actual implementation of these new solutions is by far insufficient. An analysis of the instruments showed that nurseries are the most popular and recognizable ones – in contrast to other quite unpopular services, such as children’s clubs, daily caregivers and nannies employed on a contractual basis. The results of the research presented in this article, indicate the existence of constraints on both the supply side, including issues related to financial, legal and organizational aspects, as well as on the demand side. The new solutions introduced in 2011 seem not to fully meet the expectations of families.

Polarisation of income distribution is an issue often analysed in the literature in the context of income inequality. One aspect of such research concerns the impact of polarisation on economic growth. Analyses in this field are usually focused on econometric modelling. However, for a broader assessment of the relationship between polarisation and economic growth more detailed analysis is needed – taking into account areas of income concentration and possible consequences for the economic behaviour of individuals and households. The empirical results indicate the presence of polarisation in the distribution of income in 2000–10 in Poland and the dominance of the upper over the lower polarisation. While the lower polarisation is a clearly negative phenomenon, its impact is not directly considered in this study. The upper polarisation – in the situation of Poland – proved to involve positive changes in the economic behaviour of households in the area of saving, loans and labour supply.

Tytul wol.: Sytuacja rodzin i polityka rodzinna w Polsce po dekadzie czlonkostwa w Unii Europejskiej

Most methods for the analysis of distributional change rely on the changes in the income of a particular group of people, taking either the situation of this group in the previous period, or the average change in the population, as reference point. By contrast, we propose a measure of distributional change based on the comparison of a group’s wellbeing standard against a richer group, thereby capturing a notion of change in relative income, which embodies the influence of others’ wellbeing on the judgment of the group’s own situation. The indices, and related relative income change (RIC) curves, are based on ratios of generalized mean incomes between two groups, which render them closely related to Zenga’s inequality measures and Lorenz curve comparisons, when arithmetic means are used. We consider both relative and absolute income cut-offs for the group partitions. Differences and similarities between our measures of relative income change and the Growth Incidence Curve are also discussed. These are highlighted in an empirical illustration on European countries.

The paper proposes a method of identification of a growth pattern by analyzing the direct relation between income (or some other measure of wealth) of the poorer and of the richer. To this end the basic idea underlying Zenga’s concept of inequality measurement is applied. The proposed relative income change measures allude to the intuitive concept of the proportion of two averages: upper and lower – with respect to a given quantile of the income distribution. In this sense it directly refers to the relation of the poor and the non-poor. The relative income change measure is then applied to the analysis of income growth pattern in selected countries, using the data from Luxembourg Income Study Database.