Social Change,Women,and the Family in the Era of Industrialization: Recent Polish Research

Abstract

Within a framework provided by recent Polish scholarship on modernizing social change, women, and the family, the author of this article attempts to answer three basic questions: (a) Are changes in the structure of the family, resulting in the relative decline of the multigenerational family in favor of nontraditional family norms, including the nuclear family, directly related to industrialization? (b) Does the model of the urban family of the industrial era actually differ in a structural sense from the preindustrial urban family? and (c) Do changes in the economic function of the family as a consequence of industrialization lead to corresponding changes in the structure of the family, particularly in terms of gender roles? In analyzing the Polish case, the author points to a number of paradoxical, yet parallel, developments that challenge many conventional assumptions about the impact of modernization on the preindustrial, patriarchal model of the family.