APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
FIGURE 17. Shifts in working-age population, 1950, 1960, and 1970 (U/OU) (chart/graph)
FIGURE 18. Female employment in socialized sector, 1950 and 1970 (U/OU) (chart/graph)
results chiefly from the classification of most rural housewives as economically active. Labor force participation rates for Polish women are much lower in the cities than in the countryside, since fewer married women with families find it possible to take jobs outside the home. A significant increase in the number of urban women in the labor force would require government attention to their general lack of skills and adequate training; to the relatively slow growth of the branches where women most easily find employment (handicrafts, services, trade); to the limited availability of part-time work; and to overburdened child-care centers.
Most women continue to find employment in those occupations that have traditionally had a high proportion of females, despite the official government policy of nondiscrimination by sex and marked postwar changes in traditional, conservative social attitudes toward female employment in the professions and in industry. The slow but steady increase in female employment among different occupations is shown in Figure 18.
As in other Communist societies, unemployment in Poland has been either denied or underestimated for most of the postwar period. Indeed, during the initial postwar period, it did not appear to be a major problem. The relative importance of agriculture and construction resulted in a substantial degree of seasonal unemployment, and frictional unemployment was also fairly high because of the Polish worker's tendency to change jobs frequently; the long-term unemployed were much less numerous. Employment problems are increasingly acknowledged in the press, however, for Polish manpower planners have been plagued since about 1963 by the problem of creating sufficient jobs for youths entering the labor market.
Official data on unemployment include jobseekers who have registered at government employment offices. Polish estimates suggest, however, that actual unemployment is about five times as great as registered unemployment, for many jobseekers fail to register. Most registrants, many of them women, have limited industrial skills. The ratio of youths under 18 to total registrants is low and has declined since 1965 despite the influx of young persons into the labor market. Even the official data reflect a situation that worsened markedly in the late 1960's and contributed to the labor unrest that culminated in the 1970 explosion of discontent. Official unemployment data for 1960 and 1965-70 are shown in Figure 19.
Some farming areas and virtually all industrial sectors suffer from excess employment. The formerly chronic problem of rural overpopulation is less acute as the result of the postwar territorial settlement and the steady rural-urban population trend. In the eastern provinces, however, the population on the land is considerably in excess of actual labor requirements, and nonagricultural job opportunities are relatively scarce.
Polish occupational patterns differ from those of most other East European countries in that a substantial portion of the employed work in the private sector of the economy. Moreover, the bulk of this employment is in agriculture, which still constitutes the single largest branch of economic activity. The relative size of the private sector is declining, however, in favor of the nonagricultural,
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
