Paid Work and Parenting

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the issue of paid work. Despite analyses dominating today that perceive paid work as an obstacle to parenting, I argue that paid work is an important obligation arising from parenthood. My analysis indicates that becoming a parent has consequences on how individuals perceive paid work. It becomes more important and there is a bigger focus on the level of earnings. Polish parents feel an enormous economic pressures in connection to having children. Yet the attitudes of men and women to paid work are different. In case of men there is a greater pressure to keep paid work and have a decent salary. Whereas women more often perceive paid work as a source of satisfaction. On the one hand, they also feel pressure to be active in the labour market and to bring money home, but on the other hand they confine more attention to the fact that paid work should be satisfactory. What is more, the chapter discusses these gender differences in the context of economic inequalities, as well as differences between the situation of single and coupled parents.