Recently, Poland reformed its parental leave scheme by increasing the maternity leave from 4 months to 6 months. The government also added a 6-month leave based on the income replacement principle, which is open to men. Until this reform, the country only had a 3-year means-tested leave, which hardly any fathers took. This reform might seem like a move toward the Nordic model, where the main parental leave is insurance-based and one of the goals is to induce fathers to share in the leave. We argue that the institutional arrangements in Poland, however, deviate enough from the Nordic model to discourse most fathers from sharing in the leave scheme. In addition, in the parliamentary debates politicians did not discuss gender equality as a motive for these reforms. Instead, they emphasized the need to increase fertility rates. Our article analyzes the reasons for the reforms, the reasons why gender equality was not included as a goal, and we will also show that despite the seemingly radical change in the reform, to a large extent Polish family policy remains path dependent from the communist era.
