According to the results of the economic activity of the population (BAEL) published by the Central Statistical Office In the last quarter of 2024, over 17.2 million people aged 15 to 89 worked in Poland, including 9.3 million men and over 7.9 million women. The number of working men has been on the same level for five years, while the number of working women has increased by over 300,000 at the same time, and since 2010 by over 1 million. This is due to the growing professional activity of ladies and a good situation on the labor market, thanks to which they find the desired employment much easier.
(Too) quick retirement and household duties
The number of professionally active people aged 15-89 in Poland in Q4, 2024, 17,742 thousand, of which 17,247 thousand. They were working, while 495 thousand – the unemployed. The population of passive professionally in this age group had 12,610 thousand. people. Professionally active people constitute about 58.5 percent. population between the ages of 15 and 89, but among men active percentage is still clearly higher (65.5 percent) than among women (51.9 percent). This is mainly due to the lower -five -year statutory age of the ladies and the dramatically uneven burden of educational, care and home duties. In Bael it can be seen too much.
Women give such reasons for professional passivity:
1. Retirement (53.3 percent)
2. Learning and supplementing qualifications (19.6 percent)
3. Family duties (11.7 percent)
4. Other (8.1 percent)
5. Disease, disability (6.9 percent)
In men it looks like this:
1. Retirement (48.3 percent)
2. Learning and completing qualifications (27.4 percent)
3. Disease, disability (16.8 percent)
4. Other (7 percent)
5. Family duties (1.3 percent)
In women, retirement is the reason for professional passivity of more than half of the population, in men – less than half. Family duties are in the hierarchy of professional passivity in women in third place, and men only in the fifth, with up to 9 times lower percentage of indications. Today, it has become an extremely rare reason for professional passivity with the ineffectiveness of a job search – it indicates not only 0.7 percent. men and 0.4 percent women.
Half of women aged 15 to 89 work
The professional number of passive on the Vistula is growing due to the rapid aging of society and retirement of subsequent post -war highs. This is a great change, because for decades among passive representatives of young generations predominated – pupils and students. Now pensioners have become a dominant group.
If we consider the working people themselves (i.e. we will reject the unemployed – jobseekers), then in the age range 15–89 the employment indicator is:
• For men – 63.9 percent (and decreases)
• For women – 50.3 percent – while by the end of 2022 he did not exceed 50 percent.
This means that almost two -thirds of men work and just over half of women between 15 and 89. The difference between women and men – ranging from 13 to 14 percentage points – It comes primarily from the lower retirement age of the ladies (60 years vs. 65), but also because more girls than boys decide to study and do not combine them with work. All analyzes show that Polish women aged 60+ are not only fundamentally more years of life ahead of them, but are also healthier and remain in much better condition than their male peers. The mere equalization of the retirement age of women and men at the level of 65 years could increase the population of potential employees by 1 million or even 1.5 million people, especially since women in pre -retirement age are very high professional activity:
• The professional activity coefficient of men aged 55–64 is 71.7 percent, while women aged 55–59 – 73.5 percent. And it is much higher than a decade ago, but still below the EU average. Over 85 percent work in Sweden Men in pre -retirement age, in the Netherlands it is over 83 percent. Among women, these percentages are the highest in Estonia (over 92 percent) and the Czech Republic (over 90 %). Huge reserves can also be seen on the Vistula.
The topic of equalization of the retirement age of women and men does not exist today in public debate, and politicians, hearing such a postulate of employers and many experts, ensure that no works have been undertaken and will not be undertaken to increase the retirement age – both women and men. Poland remains the only country of the European Union in which the retirement age of women and men is different. At the same time, we belong to countries with the greatest difference in the average life expectancy of women and men – to the detriment of the latter: Polish women live on average 82.5 years, and men – 75 years. The difference between the average life expectancy and retirement age is 22.5 years in Polish women, au men – 10 years.
Of course, reaching retirement age does not mean that a person must automatically retire. The reality, however, is that the percentage of professionally active people aged 60-64 is less than 40 percent. And it results almost exclusively from men’s activities, while in a group over 65 years drop to 6 percent. This is because 97 percent women and 92 percent Men’s retirement in the first four years after reaching retirement age. You can encourage people to stay on the labor market, but the vast majority do not intend to do so, and those who would even want – often do not have favorable conditions.
Bad economic effects of prejudices
According to the analysis of the Polish Economic Institute due to absurd prejudices and numerous structural and legal obstacles, we waste a significant part of the economic potential of seniors, especially seniors. Among the structural barriers, the most severe are: transport exclusion, lack of competences needed in the digital economy (this problem quickly expires) and health problems. System barriers play a greater role, primarily social exclusion caused by “historical political and economic processes” and mental-resulting mainly from negative stereotypes.
Pie – next to the fight against harmful prejudices – recommends that employers offer more flexible forms of employment by employers (and the Labor Code), such as movable working hours or remote work in full or incomplete hours. These are solutions commonly used in countries with the highest percentage of working people.
Even 15 years ago, only 6.8 million women in Poland worked. At that time, they constituted half of all women aged 15–64. Today, 7.9 million women work and they constitute over two -thirds of all women in the age range from 15 to 64 years. According to Pie estimates, the increase in women’s activity was conquered by Polish GDP by an average annually by approx. 40 percent. At the same time, it can be seen that there are still significant power reserves – especially since the current Polish employment rate of women, although record -breaking in history, belongs to the eight lowest in the EU. Basically, it is higher in Scandinavia, and outside the EU – in Switzerland.
Very low retirement age – unheard of nowhere in the Union (the standard is 67 years for both sexes) – this is the main reason for the low employment indicator of women. But not the only. According to the IGI Magda report from the Institute of Structural Research (“How to increase the professional activity of women in Poland?”)
• less educated,
• living in smaller towns and in the countryside,
• Mothers of two young children.
“They encounter barriers in the form of an inaccessible working time, financially and physically unattractive jobs, burdening household and care obligations, lack of educational institutions and providing care services for young children. Their professional activity is also limited by tax and care solutions that reduce the profitability of taking up work, “writes the researcher. And indicates three areas in which public policy can increase women’s professional activity: parents’ friendly labor market, better quality of care and educational services for young children, greater involvement of men in care and homework. He also points out that such support:
• will weaken the decrease in the supply of work resulting from demographic changes,
• enable women who would like to work to the labor market, but encounter barriers in professional activity,
• will reduce the problem of low pensions in the future: the average Polish man will receive almost 5,000 from March 2025. PLN pension, and a woman – less than 3.4 thousand zloty; The pension gap in Poland is twice as high as the EU average and results primarily from the earlier retirement of women and breaks in their professional career caused by childcare (97 % of such breaks applies to women in Poland).
PIE postulates, among others: continuation of the development of the institutional child care system (wider availability, care for the quality of institutions), increasing the participation of fathers in childcare, neutralizing barriers relevant from the point of view of women, e.g. by preparing the training system for returning to the labor market after the birth of the child, increasing the elasticity of work and ways of their benefit and more protection of women returning to work after interruption. caring.
According to experts, it is equally important to fight stereotypes leading to discrimination against women on the labor market, in the education system and in other spheres of social life. You need campaigns in the media and NGOs as well as additional educational programs in primary and secondary schools. According to Pie, “one of the important goals of the evolution of the labor market in Poland should be to increase the percentage of women in competitions that are very small by them”, as well as increasing the percentage of women in decision positions. © ℗
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