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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relation between occupational segregation and the gender wage differences using data on three-digit occupational level of classification. The authors examine whether a statistically significant relation between the share of men in employment and the size of the unexplained part of the gender wage gap exists.

Traditional Oaxaca (1973) – Blinder (1973) decomposition is performed to examine the differences in the gender wage gaps among minor occupational groups. Two types of reweighted decomposition – based on the parametric estimate of the propensity score and non-parametric proposition presented by Barsky et al. (2002) – are used as the robustness check. The analysis is based on individual data available from Poland.

The results indicate no strong relation between occupational segregation and the size of unexplained differences in wages. The unexplained wage differences are the smallest in strongly female-dominated and mixed occupations; the highest are observed in male-dominated occupations. However, they are probably to a large extent the result of other, difficult to include in the econometric model, factors rather than the effects of wage discrimination: differences in the psychophysical conditions of men and women, cultural background, tradition or habits. The failure to take them into account may result in over-interpreting the unexplained parts as gender discrimination.

The highest accuracy of the estimated gender wage gap is obtained for the occupational groups with a similar proportion of men and women in employment. In other male- or female-dominated groups, the size of the estimated gender wage gaps depends on the estimation method used.

The results suggest that decreasing the degree of segregation of men and women in different occupations could reduce the wage differences between them, as the wage discrimination in gender balanced occupations is the smallest.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few conducted at such a disaggregated level of occupations, and one of few studies focused on Central and Eastern European countries and the first one for Poland.

This paper examines the similarities and variations in the professional and work organisation of nursing in Greece and Poland. It evaluates the evidence of “convergence” as opposed to “embeddedness” in the professional and gendered organisation of nursing in these two countries. The feminised character of nursing is discussed, in relation to the family within the configuration of health‐care services. This issue also relates to the clientelistic relations and familialism that pervade health‐care delivery in both countries – although for different historical and cultural reasons – and which reflect and reinforce patriarchical relations within these societies.

This survey‐based study examines gender‐based perspectives of job orientation, expectations, and motivations in the country of Poland.

Polish professionals were asked to rate 25 job characteristics according to their importance to the rater on a five‐point scale (5 = very important, 1 = not important). Mean scores were calculated and rank ordered for males and females separately. Two‐tailed t‐tests between male and female scores for each item tested for significant differences. A principle components factor analysis with rotation by the varimax method was performed on the correlation matrix of the 25 job characteristics.

Results show that males and females differ on 15 of the 25 job characteristics. Standard deviations of the importance ratings were examined. They were higher for males on 21 of 25 items, with a mean standard deviation of 0.96 for males and 0.87 for females. A paired t‐test ((1−(2 = 0)) resulted in rejecting the null hypothesis (p ≤ 0.001). Thus, for the respondents in this study, females as a group are significantly more homogeneous than are the males. Results of factor analysis with orthogonal rotation by the varimax method produced three factors of eigenvalues greater than 1.5, accounting for 37.3 per cent of the total variance. Factor I accounted for 17.9 per cent of the total variance and includes six job characteristics related to long term career objectives. Factor II deals with characteristics which can be classified as intellectual activity and explained 12.7 per cent of the total variance. Factor III included four characteristics related to structure and accounted for 6.7 per cent of the variance.

It would be worthwhile to extend the survey in the future to address three key issues: 1 – group respondents by years of service, for example, less than 5 years, more than 10 years, and so forth; 2 – control for salary levels; 3 – adjust for changes in the unemployment rate.

This research indicates that even though money is an important motivator (number 1 for males and number 5 for females), there are certainly other methods of motivation beyond financial ones. This is particularly significant for foreign corporations investing in Poland. Such knowledge should provide organizations that use it as a competitive advantage not tied exclusively to monetary outlays.

Poland is a developing economy which many observers believe is the most attractive emerging market in the expanding European Union. As such, the findings here should help organizations, both endogenous and exogenous, attract and retain employees.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of self-employment exit in Poland and its determinants.

The author examines the outflow from self-employment into different labour market status: employment, unemployment, inactivity using multinomial logistic regression. The analysis is conducted separately for men and women using Polish Labour Force Surveys (LFS) (2001-2007).

Results indicate that personal and family characteristics have different impact on self-employment exit for men and women. However, unfavourable macroeconomic conditions have similar impact regardless gender. The author’s results show that higher local unemployment rate reduces the likelihood of self-employment exit into employment, while conducting business in a sector affected by economic downturn increase outflow from self-employment for both men and women.

Certain limitations of the study arise from the design of the Polish LFS. It is a rotating panel with relatively few time periods, so it can only allow the author to analyse the outcomes in short-term perspectives.

Those results provide some background for potential policy interventions. In the context of persistent, high unemployment rates in Poland, there is need for some policy incentives which reinforce self-employment – an important alternative form of the labour market participation.

Majority of previous studies focusses on self-employment creation, as policy incentives do. However, very little is known about the reasons for leaving self-employment. The author fills this gap analysing the outflow and transition from self-employment to different labour market status.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on earnings inequality within dual-earner couples in four Central-East European (CEE) countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It aims to analyse the factors that influence earnings distribution within couples.

The analysis uses OLS regression applied on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions 2011 survey to reveal the various influence of relevant factors, especially relative education and the presence of children, on relative earnings.

Women, on average, contribute less to a couple’s income than men. While considerably higher in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, such disparity is relatively low in Hungary and Poland. These countries have the highest share of dual-earner couples where the woman outearns her partner. The factor that substantially reduces the within-couple earnings inequality in all the analysed countries is a higher relative education of women. On the contrary, the presence of children, especially those of younger age, increases this disparity in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The research on within-couple earning inequality in CEE countries lags behind the relatively rich evidence from western Europe. This is the first study which systematically describes the situation in CEE countries from a comparative perspective.

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of complementarity between cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills, and to evaluate their joint impact on individual wages.

The author uses a survey representative of the Polish working-age population with well-established measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.

Non-cognitive skills are important in the labour market, not only as separate factors that influence wages, but as complements to cognitive skills. Specifically, the analysis showed that the more neurotic an individual is, the lower his or her returns to cognitive skills are. Social skills were not shown to be complementary to cognitive skills in Poland unlike the recent results in the United States.

To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence that neurotic individuals have lower returns to cognitive skills. It also tests the existence of the complementarity between social and cognitive skills.

Drawing on Putnam’s concept of social capital, this study aims to examine the oral life histories of women on management boards. It explores how the bridging and bonding forms of social capital are created and used to advance women’s careers to reach top management positions on corporate boards.

This study is both explorative and interpretive. A total of 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female board members of Polish companies to gain access to their life histories.

Women develop social capital to advance their careers. However, they mainly focus on bonding capital, which allows them to sustain relationships within their inner circle. Bridging capital, which extends relationships to advance women’s careers, is often overlooked if not neglected. It seems it is usually an external shock when women understand the importance of bridging capital.

This study provides a better insight into how bridging and bonding capital help and/or distract women from reaching top managerial positions. It has potential policy-making implications for promoting women to leadership positions. The study results can guide organizations in providing equal opportunities for employees.

This study builds on previous research regarding the accumulation of human and social capital by board members. It encourages academics and practitioners to critically consider the relationship between bonding and bridging capital and the promotion of women to top management positions. This study provides access to a field of Central and Eastern European countries.

The communication effect of four types of alcohol advertisement, i.e. humorous, warm, erotic and non‐emotional, are studied in Belgian and Polish samples of young consumers. Ad recognition, brand attribution, ad evoked feelings, cognitive and affective reactions, attitude towards the ad, the brand and purchase intention, are measured and compared between the Belgian and the Polish group. A lot of similarities between Polish and Belgian subjects emerge. Emotional appeals generate a more positive ad and brand attitude, and humour is the most effective emotional appeal. Basic ad evoked feelings are very similar in both groups. On the other hand, some differences are observed. Erotic ads do a better job in Poland than in Belgium. An evoked irritation leads to negative communication effects only in Belgium, but not in Poland. Polish consumers seem to rely more on cognitive responses to form an attitude towards the brand, while affective responses are more important for Belgium consumers.

Explores the impact of marketisation and enterprise restructuring processes on a Polish case study organisation. “Polskie” illustrates that certain western HRM practices are informing the process of restructuring organisations. These new approaches signal managers’ intentions to change attitudes to work and reassert control over the production process. The assessment, development and utilisation of human resources is an integral part of the overall management of the post‐communist enterprise. The field of personnel management is set to assume a key position. A key research question is whether women, as existing practitioners, have been able to augment their position in this growing area of expertise. Discusses whether the process of political and economic reform in Poland has provided an opportunity to improve the employment status of women and identifies reasons for being optimistic, but also highlights several areas for concern.

It is frequently held that the old “official” unions have largely been discredited, while numerous studies point to employee dissatis‐faction with the performance of unions new and old in the era of transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, membership has not collapsed, although the unions themselves exaggerate its total. It is somewhat surprising therefore that little work has been undertaken on the determinants of the individual union‐joining decision in the new environment. This paper undertakes such a study for the case of Poland. Notwithstanding reputation effects, two further forces have accompanied the collapse of the communist regime and are likely to have reduced the attractiveness of union membership to workers. The first is the widespread loss of the distributive role with regard to important private goods which the unions previously possessed, while the second is the challenge to the strength of the social custom of union membership which systemic change has occasioned. While the transition economies are often held to have a distinct industrial relations system, in Poland at least, the determinants of the individual union‐joining decision appear very similar to those which have been uncovered in western contexts.