This book examines a broad spectrum of adaptation strategies to systemic social change in post-1989 Poland. The main source of information comes from the Polish Panel Survey, polpan, conducted in consecutive five-year intervals since 1987–1988. The focus of polpan is the transformation of Poland’s social structure. polpan surveys contain data on Polish society and multiple generations within it, and on the relationships between these generations. Particular attention is paid to respondents’ employment history, labor market inequality, and living conditions, and to respondents’ attitudes and behaviors. The variety of topics in polpan is reflected in this volume.
In the past, polpan received funds from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Polish Academy of Sciences as well as from the United States Information Agency, US National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University, and Norwegian Research Council. Research for this book was supported by a grant awarded by the (Polish) National Science Center for the project “Multidimensional Biographies and Social Structure: Poland 1988–2018” (umo-2017/25/b/hs6/02697; Principal Investigator [pi]: Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, co-pi: Irina Tomescu-Dubrow).
Over the years, many researchers contributed to polpan. We thank them all for their meaningful involvement in this study. Recent close collaborators include, next to this volume’s authors and editors, Anna Baczko-Dombi, Krystyna Janicka, Ewa Jarosz, Anna Turner, Kinga Wysieńska-DiCarlo, and Ilona Wysmułek. We appreciate their contribution to the 2018 polpan wave and for sharing polpan results. We also thank the many survey interviewers throughout Poland and over the years who the polpan project funded to interview, in-person, the survey respondents. We are thankful for their time and dedication to producing a high-quality dataset.
Contributors to this volume are members of consirt – Cross-National Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training program (consirt.osu.edu), a joint program of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland, and The Ohio State University in the USA. By organizing scientific meetings that involved Polish and American scholars and by drawing students from Poland and the US to analyze the project’s data, consirt is essential for providing an international dimension to polpan.
We could not complete this book without the support of the administrative staff of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. The director of this institution, Professor Andrzej Rychard, fully
Sociological studies depend on everyday people who are willing to answer surveys. Some respondents participated in all seven waves of the polpan study. We thank all polpan’s respondents for agreeing to give us their time. We dedicate this book to them.