性别格局：波兰（英）2025

Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska(University of Warsaw)Reena Badiani-Magnusson(World Bank) MAY 2025 Poland has made important strides in strengthening gender equality, particu-larly in education where women now outperform men in many areas of humancapital development. However, untapped opportunities remain to better trans-late these strengths into the labor market and society. While Polish women arehighly educated, they participate less in the labor force, with differences mostpronounced by age, education level, and family situation. Improving access toflexible work arrangements and expanding quality childcare could help morewomen balance work and family responsibilities – an area where cultural normsstill place disproportionate caregiving expectations on women. Strengtheningmen’s engagement in family life and promoting shared responsibilities wouldsupport broader social progress. Addressing persistent gaps in wages, pensions,and leadership roles would also ensure that women’s educational achievementstranslate into equal economic outcomes over the life course. At the same time,greater focus on men’s well-being – including supporting those in vocationaltracks and tackling health disparities – can contribute to more inclusive and bal-anced outcomes for all. This note draws on data and research to highlight boththe challenges and opportunities ahead, and to identify key priorities for advanc-ing gender equality in Poland. LIST OF CONTENT 1. Overview............................................................................................................................................................42. Human Capital...............................................................................................................................................53. Labor Market.................................................................................................................................................104. Power................................................................................................................................................................205. Violence...........................................................................................................................................................226. Institutions: norms and family policies......................................................................................247. Conclusion and recommendations..............................................................................................27References..........................................................................................................................................................29 1. OVERVIEW Poland continues to lag behind the EU average on holistic measures of genderequality, with slow and uneven progress. According to the Gender Equality Index(GEI) developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality, Poland scored63.4 points out of 100 in 2024 – ranking 18th in the EU and 7.6 points below theEU average. The GEI measures gender equality across six core domains: work,money, knowledge, time, power, and health, with 100 reflecting full equality be-tween women and men. While Poland has made gains over time in the GEI– most notably after 2020, due to improvements in how time is shared betweengenders on care, domestic work and social activities – its overall pace of progress(7.9 points since 2013) has been slower than the EU average. As a result, the gapbetween Poland and the EU average has widened over time. Poland has made important strides towards gender equality, with notable im-provements in areas such as work participation. A number of gaps however re-main visible, including in the domains of political representation anddecision-making roles. Despite gains over time (Figure 1), Poland still lags behindEU averages in most areas included in the index, highlighting the need for tar-geted policies and initiatives to promote gender equality. Poland faces particu-lar challenges in the domain of power, which includes political representationand decision-making roles (Figure 2), with a score of 39.6 compared to the EU av-erage of 61.4. Furthermore, progress also varies within domains: while in workparticipation Poland’s score has converged to EU average between 2013 and2024, reflecting rising female labor force participation, Poland scores secondfrom the bottom in terms of segregation and quality of work in 2024, pullingdown the average score in the work domain. 2. HUMAN CAPITAL Gender inequality in human capital in Poland presents a complex picture, withpersistent barriers limiting women’s economic outcomes and an emerging re-verse gender gap disadvantaging men in education and health. According tothe Human Capital Index (HCI) from 2020, Poland ranked 12th among EU27countries, with a score of 0.75 – above the EU average of 0.73. This means thata child born in Poland in 2020 could achieve 75% of their potential lifetime pro-duc