Tensions in Family Policies in Post-Communist Central Europe

Abstract

The communist regimes in Europe developed unique types of hybrid family policies, which combined relatively high access to childcare with parental leave schemes that promoted the male breadwinner model (Saxonberg, 2003b, 2011; Saxonberg and Sirovatka, 2006a,b; Saxonberg and Szelewa, 2007). Emphasis should be placed, however, on the term ‘relatively’, because access was much higher for kindergartens for children aged 3–5 than for nurseries for children aged 0–2, and even though access to nurseries in the 1950s and 1960s was still high by international standards, by the 1980s many Western European countries had surpassed the Central European countries in terms of access to day care for children under three.1 This chapter focuses on Czechoslovakia (which later divided into the Czech and Slovak Republics in 1993), Hungary and Poland. These countries have in common that they are all among the wealthiest, most industrialized and ‘Western’-oriented of the former communist countries, with the exception of East Germany, which represents a special case, since it re-united with West Germany and basically took over West Germany’s policies after the collapse of the communist-led regime. These countries also have historical similarities as they were all formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (although only part of Poland had been). At least among these countries, some differences emerged, although the availability of day care was always much lower in Poland than in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In all of these countries, some day care facilities were provided by the local municipal governments and some by enterprises.