Polish Migrant Women Research Articles

Fragile belonging: professional Polish women’s belonging at work

ABSTRACT Research continues to emerge on the role of Brexit on migrants’ belonging in Britain, and this article contributes to the scholarship in related ways. The article draws on belonging as an analytical frame to examine how Polish migrant women in professional occupations challenge and negotiate their belonging at work. The article uses qualitative narrative interviews collected pre-Brexit (2015/2016) with Polish women living in Greater Manchester to examine their belonging strategies. Despite these migrant women’s shared whiteness, Europeanness, and professional status, these signifiers do not prevent them from encountering non-belonging. Nonetheless, the women’s narratives show they use various active and complex strategies (ethnicised, classed, and individualized) in their workplaces to conceal, recast and uplift their position to forge belonging. The findings enhance our understanding of workplace belonging processes, including Polish professional women’s strategies during a challenging period. Additionally, they contribute to the development of future workplace policy on belonging research.

Childbearing among Polish migrant women and their descendants in Sweden: an origin-destination country approach

This paper examines the childbearing behaviour of Polish migrant women and their descendants in Sweden. Also considering stayers in the country of origin, we rely on a country-of-origin and country-of-destination approach in a careful examination regarding the relevance of three hypotheses on migrant fertility: the socialisation, selection, and adaptation hypotheses. We analyse the transitions to first and second births based on a piecewise exponential model, using Swedish register data and the Polish Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) first wave. The results support the socialisation hypothesis, as the Polish stayers and the first-generation Polish migrants have their first child at younger ages and are less likely to remain childless than the other groups but are also more likely to not proceed to a second child, unlike the Swedish natives and the second generation. We find partial support for the selection hypothesis. Descriptively, we observe signs of selection into migration based on education, cohort, and marital status. Additionally, our study shows that the impact of marriage varies between stayers and migrants, in the first-birth transition, suggesting selection into migration when it comes to unobserved characteristics as well. The adaptation hypothesis is also supported, as the fertility behaviour of the second generation more closely resembles that of the Swedish natives than that of the first generation and differs more from that of the Polish stayers in terms of both quantum and timing of the first and second births.

Cabbage and Sauerkraut Consumption in Adolescence and Adulthood and Breast Cancer Risk among US-Resident Polish Migrant Women.

Background: Breast cancer (BC) incidence and mortality are lower in Poland than in the United States (US). However, Polish-born migrant women to US approach the higher BC mortality rates of US women. We evaluated the association between consumption of cabbage/sauerkraut foods and BC risk in Polish-born migrants to US. Methods: We conducted a case–control study of BC among Polish-born migrants in Cook County and the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Cases (n = 131) were 20–79 years old with histological/cytological confirmation of invasive BC. Population-based controls (n = 284) were frequency matched to cases on age and residence. Food frequency questionnaires assessed diet during adulthood and age 12–13 years. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated with conditional logistic regression. Consumption of total, raw/short-cooked, and long-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods was categorized as low, medium, or high (frequency of servings/week). Results: Higher consumption of total and raw/short-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods, during both adolescence and adulthood, was associated with a significantly lower BC risk. Consumption of long-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods was low and not significantly associated with risk. The multivariate OR for total cabbage/sauerkraut consumption, high vs. low (>4 vs. ≤2 servings/week) during adolescence was 0.36 (95% CI = 0.18–0.71, ptrend < 0.01) and 0.50 (95% CI = 0.23–1.06, ptrend = 0.08) during adulthood. For raw/short-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut (>3 vs. ≤1.5 servings/week), the ORs were 0.35 (95% CI = 0.16–0.72, ptrend < 0.01) during adolescence and 0.37 (95% CI = 0.17–0.78, ptrend < 0.01) during adulthood. For joint adolescent/adult consumption of raw/short-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods, (high, high) vs. (low, low), the OR was 0.23 (95% CI = 0.07–0.65). The significant association for high adolescent consumption of raw/short-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods and reduced BC risk was consistent across all levels of consumption in adulthood. Conclusion: Greater consumption of total and raw/short-cooked cabbage/sauerkraut foods either during adolescence or adulthood was associated with significantly reduced BC risk among Polish migrant women. These findings contribute to the growing literature suggesting a protective effect of a potentially modifiable factor, cruciferous vegetable intake, on breast cancer risk.

Exploring gendered differences among polish migrants in the UK in problematic drinking and pathways into and through alcohol treatment

Few studies have focused on the gendered differences amongst Polish migrants in their use of alcohol or access to treatment services. This study explored the divergent pathways through alcohol use, misuse and treatment access in a group of Polish migrants in London. Using an intersectionality framework we examine the ways that social attitudes toward gender in both communities and access to services related to migrant status and class are experienced. With a view to informing treatment services we discuss how a better understanding of these pathways, and the factors likely to influence them, can be used to address challenges experienced by Polish migrant women with problematic alcohol use.

Migrant Experiences of Conviviality in the Context of Brexit: Polish Migrant Women in Manchester

Migrant Experiences of Conviviality in the Context of Brexit: Polish Migrant Women in Manchester

Zakotwiczanie się. Migrantki z Polski w norweskim przedszkolu

Based on participant observation and ethnographic interviews with Polish women working in kin-dergartens in Norway, this article studies the migrant women’s employment trajectories, including adaptation processes in the workplace and integration into the wider Norwegian society. In this paper, I aim at answering the following questions: How do Polish migrant women go about seek-ing employment in Norwegian kindergartens? How do they adapt to the new work environment? How do they deal with cross-cultural differences in childcare? How did they learn new norms and values within the institutional context of kindergartens? The research indicates that employment in kindergartens was not merely a way to provide for one’s livelihood, but was also a mechanism to establish and develop a closer relationship with members of the Norwegian society, a tool facilitating meaningful connections with the new country.

Post-socialist narratives of being, belonging and becoming: Eastern European women migrants and transformative politics in an era of European crises

This paper draws from an oral history project on ‘Gendered Histories of Resilience and Resistance: Eastern European Women’s Narratives of Mobility and Survival’, which is a narrative ethnography of Albanian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish migrant women living in Greece. The paper explores these women’s life stories, memories and experiences, in both their ancestral homelands as well as country of settlement, in order to examine the intersections of gender and identity in how the recollection of socialist pasts informs the understanding of living present and future capitalist lives. The diverse, compelling but also competing accounts of women’s childhood and early adult lives in socialist times in their Eastern European countries of origin is an intriguing way to explore issues of being, belonging and becoming. Discussions on feminism and identity are also revealing as they highlight the discourses and political projects at the intersections of personal experiences with broader socio-cultural and economic fields, in particular as regards the context of migration and the current crisis in Greece.

A dream job or just any old job? The career paths of Polish migrant women working in Norwegian kindergartens

A dream job or just any old job? The career paths of Polish migrant women working in Norwegian kindergartens

Mothering and othering in the city: Polish migrants in the UK

This article addresses the many complexities of migrant mothering by examining the unique ways in which it is performed, negotiated and made sense of by migrant mothers themselves. Drawing on interviews conducted with recent Polish migrant women who mother small children in British cities, I study how mothering is inscribed with value and how kinwork is done locally, among ‘people like us’ (Stack, 1974). I discuss how migrant mothers position themselves vis-à-vis the other mothers they encounter in their neighbourhoods, and how these positionings are gendered, classed and ethnicised. I propose that practising and displaying intensive mothering may serve as a form of cultural capital for migrant mothers, a means of positioning themselves favourably in a new neighbourhood or school. For recent migrants, intensive mothering may thus work to ‘elevate’ them beyond the migrant experience.

Racism and xenophobia experienced by Polish migrants in the UK before and after Brexit vote

ABSTRACTIn recent years the public discourses on Polish migration in the UK have rapidly turned hostile, especially in the context of economic crisis in 2008, and subsequently after the EU referendum in 2016. While initially Poles have been perceived as a ‘desirable’ migrant group and labelled as ‘invisible’ due to their whiteness, this perception shifted to the representation of these migrants as taking jobs from British workers, putting a strain on public services and welfare. While racist and xenophobic violence has been particularly noted following the Brexit vote, Polish migrants experienced various forms of racist abuse before that. This paper draws on narrative interviews with Polish migrant women illustrating their experiences of racism and xenophobia in Greater Manchester before and after the Brexit vote, and how they make sense of anti-Polish discourses and attitudes. This paper illustrates the importance of the interplay between the media and political discourses, class, race and the local context in shaping relations between Polish migrants and the local population.

Polish migrant women’s narratives about language, racialised and gendered difference in Barcelona

The European Union expansion in 2004 resulted in significant changes in migration in Europe. For Spain, which did not open its labour market to the new accession countries until 2006, the extent of Polish migration has been substantially smaller than in countries like Britain. Hence, little scholarly attention has been paid to the experiences of Polish migrants in the Iberian Peninsula. Compared to other European cities, the case of Barcelona is significant, especially in terms of cultural diversity, Catalan identity and bilingual status, something that the newcomers are often unaware of. By drawing on the conceptual framework of conviviality and on data gathered through participant observation, narrative interviews and a focus group conducted with Polish women in Barcelona, this article concentrates on various forms of encounters with the local population. It argues that race, ethnicity, gender, language and spatiality are important factors influencing convivial relations. It contributes to the existing literature by exploring various forms and degrees of conviviality discussed as situated, not necessarily free from tensions and racialised and gendered perceptions of the Other.

Biomedical practices from a patient perspective. Experiences of Polish female migrants in Barcelona, Berlin and London

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the diversity in patients’ experience of bio-medicine and contrasts it with the normative view characteristic of health professionals. Ethnographic fieldwork among Polish migrant women in London, Barcelona and Berlin included interviews about their experiences with local healthcare and health professionals. Themes drawn from the narratives are differences between the cities in terms of communication between patients and health professionals, respect for patients’ choices and dignity, attitudes to pregnancy and birth (different levels of medicalization), and paediatric care. It is argued that patients continuously negotiate among their own views and expectations based on previous experiences and knowledge from personal communication; internet forums and publications; and the offer of medical services in the countries of their settlement. Patients experience pluralism of therapeutic traditions within and outside bio-medicine. In turn, representatives of bio-medicine are rarely aware of other medical practices and beliefs and this leads to various misunderstandings. By highlighting the pluralism of medical practices in European countries and the increasing mobility of patients, this case study has useful implications for medical anthropologists and health professionals in a broader Western context, such as raising sensitivity to different communication strategies and a diversity of curing traditions and expectations.

Ethnic, gender and class identities of Polish migrant mothers: intersecting maternal narratives with transnationalism and integration

ABSTRACTBased on a doctoral study of Polish migrant mothers living in Germany and the United Kingdom, this paper examines women's narratives pertinent to ethnicity, gender and social class, as well as the mutual entanglements of these dimensions. While the ethnic identity matrix often evokes dimensions of transnationalism and integration, the addition of the femininity component illustrates the diversity among contemporary Polish migrant women in Western Europe with regard to their identity practices. The analyses of transnational, translocal and cosmopolitan orientations highlight their binding to a contextualized understanding of femininity – its various markers and corollary epitome of motherhood, particularly in the Polish context. The main findings comprise an ideal-type based typology of migrant mothering, which sheds light on how mobility and gender intersect. The discussions adopt the social class lens in an attempt to focus on the implications of certain maternal and migrant identities among Polish women. By underscoring the value of both integration and transnationalism perspectives, the paper calls for additional aspects of translocality and hybridization, seeing them as noticeable social markers of the Polish female migrants’ biographies.

Migrating motherhood and gendering exile: Eastern European women narrate migrancy and homing

Synopsis This article draws on a larger oral history project with Albanian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish migrant women living Greece, exploring how migrancy, motherhood and mothering intersect with how a negotiation and translation of emotional, cultural, embodied agency is transformed in the meanings of citizenship on translocal and transnational levels. We unpack gendered representations of how striving to belong is transmitted in migrant mothering practices and how the latter intersect with wider issues of immigration policy and status in an era of crises in Greece. In mapping experiences of migrant mothering through participant narratives, we demonstrate the importance of understanding mothering and migrancy as parallel, complementary and complex performativities. As such they form iconographies of resilience, incorporation and individual agency as women cope with being both migrants and mothers, often without extensive networks of support, and within a context of a wider xenophobic and crisis-ridden Greece.

New insights into the fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants in the United Kingdom

There have been important changes in the United Kingdom’s fertility and immigration in the past decade, with a large share contributed by migrants from Poland. A detailed understanding of Polish migrant fertility is lacking, however, because the relevant data are not routinely collected. This paper provides new insights into the fertility patterns of Polish migrants in the UK, and compares these patterns with those of other large immigrant groups, the UK-born population and in Poland. We use the UK Labour Force Survey with the Own Children Method, illustrating the potential of survey data for estimating immigrant fertility in settings where other data are unavailable. We first compare the fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants with those of other key recent immigrant groups and the UK-born population; estimating Age-Specific Fertility Rates (ASFRs), and Total Fertility Rates (TFRs), by country of birth for the 2004–2012 period; the proportions in each immigrant group that arrive without children; and of those childless at arrival the proportions of women who go on to have births within a short period after arrival. Next, we compare the ASFRs and TFR for Polish migrant women with those observed in Poland. Our results show that the fertility of Polish migrants is among the lowest for all population subgroups in the UK, and that Polish migrants are less likely to have children soon after arrival than other immigrant groups. The findings are consistent with migration not being so closely linked to family formation for Polish migrants as it is for immigrants in the comparison groups. We also find that the fertility patterns of Polish migrants are different from those observed in Poland with a later childbearing profile and a slightly higher TFR.

Citizenship in Action? A Case Study of Polish Migrant Women Moving between Poland and the UK

Migration from the new European Union (EU) Member States to the United Kingdom (UK) has been identified as one of the most significant social phenomena of recent times and Accession 8 (A8) migration to the UK has been studied extensively particularly since 2004. Even though gendered studies of migration are now attaining recognition, there is limited literature in relation to Polish migrant women. What is more, there is now much evidence to support the view that migrant women constitute a large proportion of international migrants. In fact, when considering migration within the European context, migrant women now outnumber their male counterparts. Drawing on a review of secondary literature and preliminary findings from new fieldwork research undertaken in Poland and the UK in 2012, this paper explores how Polish migrant women exercise their rights as EU citizens to better their own and their families’ wellbeing. As the consequence of their newly acquired rights as EU citizens, Polish migrant women appear to be active agents who make use of the resources and opportunities that migration offers. It is concluded that migration within the EU presents positive opportunities for Polish migrant women to actively engage with and exercise national and EU citizenship rights.

‘Out of two bad choices, I took the slightly better one’: Vaccination dilemmas for Scottish and Polish migrant women during the H1N1 influenza pandemic

Pregnancy has been identified as a risk factor for complications from pandemic H1N1 influenza, and pregnant women were identified as a target group for vaccination in the UK in the 2009 pandemic. Poland took a more conservative approach, and did not offer vaccination to pregnant women. Poland accounts for the largest wave of recent migrants to the UK, many of whom are in their reproductive years and continue to participate actively in Polish healthcare systems after migration. The authors speculated that different national responses may shape differences in approaches to the vaccine between Scottish and Polish women. This study therefore aimed to assess how pregnant Polish migrants to Scotland weighed up the risks and benefits of the vaccine for pandemic H1N1 influenza in comparison with their Scottish counterparts. A qualitative interview-based study comparing the views of Scottish and Polish pregnant women on H1N1 vaccination was carried out in 'real time' during the first 2 weeks of the vaccination programme in November 2009. One-to-one interviews were conducted with 10 women (five Polish and five Scottish) in their native language. Interviews were transcribed, translated, coded and analysed for differences and similarities in decision-making processes between the two groups. Contrary to expectations, Scottish and Polish women drew on a strikingly similar set of considerations in deciding whether or not to accept the vaccine, with individual women reaching different conclusions. Almost all of the women adopted a critical stance towards the vaccine. While most women understood that pregnancy was a risk factor for complications from influenza, their primary concern was protecting family health overall and their fetus in particular. Deciding whether or not to accept the vaccine was difficult for women. Some identified a contradiction between the culture of caution which characterizes pregnancy-related advice, and the fact that they were being urged to accept what was perceived as a relatively untested vaccine. Their health histories, individual constitutions, and whether their everyday routines exposed them to sources of infection combined to establish their perceived 'candidacy' for contracting infection. Neither Scottish nor Polish women felt that 'official' information addressed their concerns in sufficient detail, and almost all of the women sought information from a variety of sources. Polish women found it more difficult to access information and advice from the National Health Service than their Scottish counterparts. For most respondents, deciding whether or not to accept the vaccine was an attenuated process, culminating for many in choosing the 'least worst' option in the context of competing risks. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to assess perceptions of H1N1 immunization risk in pregnant women in 'real time'. It highlights the important unmet needs for information that women need to be able to make informed vaccination choices, and the challenges of producing such information in a context of uncertainty. This is of particular relevance as many countries, including the UK, are actively reviewing their plans for vaccination programmes during pregnancy.

Tracing the Journey of Cross-cultural Adaptation by Polish Migrant Women in Ireland: Effects of Push and Pull Factors on Polish Migrant Women’s Identity

Tracing the Journey of Cross-cultural Adaptation by Polish Migrant Women in Ireland: Effects of Push and Pull Factors on Polish Migrant Women’s Identity

066: Cabbage/Sauerkraut Intake at 12–13 Years of Age and Adulthood and Breast Cancer Risk in Polish Migrant Women: Results from the US Component of the Polish Women's Health Study

066: Cabbage/Sauerkraut Intake at 12–13 Years of Age and Adulthood and Breast Cancer Risk in Polish Migrant Women: Results from the US Component of the Polish Women's Health Study