Socio-Economic Issues

My father is a retired history professor. He lives in a small, at least for American standards, apartment in Krakow in a nine-store townhouse. This is the same apartment where our all family lived - me, my parents and my two brothers. The apartment consists of just two rooms, kitchen, bathroom, balcony and the hall. It is hard to imagine that we lived there - five of us. I remember that my brother had the beds which had to be folded up during the day. Every piece of space was properly managed, since the space was so limited. We have extra storage in the walls and even in the ceilings.

Read more: Crime, European Standards and Vulnerability of Elderly People

Washington, D.C. Vice-Consul Pawel Bogdziewicz hosted a lecture featuring Chairman Krzysztof Czyzewski of the Borderland Foundation (BF) here at the Consulate General of the Embassy of Poland on February 3, 2006. The BF House is located in the small town of Sejny in the far north-east corner of Poland. Of consequence to its nearby and once fluid borders with Lithuania and Belarus, it has a well established mixed population of Poles, Lithuanians and Russians. The once flourishing Jewish population was exterminated by the Nazi Germans during World War II. But their Old Yeshiva and White Synagogue have been preserved and maintained and are now utilized for concerts, dramas and exhibitions.

Read more: Sejny On The Borderland

The report about unemployment released in September 2004 (the total unemployment was estimated at 18.9-19%) by vice prime-minister, Hausner, expressed concerns that more and more people remain unemployed even after one year - after this time period they stop receiving any unemployment benefits.

Read more: Unemployment among older and less educated people

Domination of one type of industry

Some towns and regions were dominated by only one type of industry or a heavy industry which underwent crisis in 90-es. Regions with heavy industry (Starachowice, Walbrzych - brown coal industry) or with one dominating industry, like for instance textile (Lodz area) or shipyard industry (Gdansk). We will write more about it in the following article about structural unemployment. Since the fall of the heavy industry there are regions where an unemployment reaches 30% and also there are towns (Warsaw, Poznan) were unemployment is very low. The fall of the industry is partly related to the old economic structure which was bounding all Eastern European communist countries into mutual dependence on one another, more about it in the next point of our analysis below.

Read more: Specific Features of Polish Unemployment