The family is our greatest good. It is the most important thing to every one of us. Our parents, siblings, grandparents come first – this is our closest family, our world. Later on, as we grow up and become adult, that circle gets wider, and we set our own families.

Family 800+ soon to become a fact

We support Polish families in a responsible and consistent manner, ensuring their safety in a number of dimensions. We are building Poland that is friendly to families. We started it in 2016 by launching the Family 500+ programme, which with time, three years later, was extended to every child in a family. Today we are making a step forward, as the benefit is scheduled to increase to PLN 800 from the next year on. Family 800+ will soon become a fact," said Minister of Family and Social Policy Marlena Maląg.

Between April 2016 and July of this year, Polish families received more than PLN 240 billion under the Family 500+ programme.

Financial injection in support for Polish families

The family policy means specific support at successive stages of life and development of a child, adjusted to the needs of the parents, to the needs of families and children. 2018 saw the launch of the Good Start programme, i.e. PLN 300 for a school starter kit for every school child. Between the start of the programme and the beginning of July of this year, the support reached nearly PLN 7.1 billion. Applications under this year's edition can be submitted by the end of November of this year.

"Last year, we launched two other programmes: the Family Care Capital for the second and subsequent children in a family, and co-financing of nursery care of other children, representing strong support in paying for care of the youngest children," says Minister Marlena Maląg. 

Between the start of the programme and the end of July of this year, the expenditures of the Family Care Capital reached more than PLN 4.8 billion, and the sum was allocated to 708,000 children. The value of the co-financing of nursery care reached around PLN 588 million for some 94,000 children.

Even more places of kid care

Parents, and most importantly moms who want to go back to work after their maternity leave, are faced with the choice between a nursery, a kindergarten and a nanny. Or perhaps taking care of the child by themselves? The bad thing is when there is no such choice because there are no such facilities in the neighbourhood, and the woman simply has to stay at home and resign from professional life. However, this should always be an individual choice made by a given family.

It is the role of the State to support parents in bringing up their children, in providing them with what is the best – also in terms of care. This is why we consistently invest in creating new places of care at nurseries and children's clubs under the Toddler+ programme. This means funds for creating new places and supporting the existing ones," underlined the Minister.

Over the last 8 years the number of places of care of children of up to 3 years of age across the country has tripled from 84,000 in 2015 to 232,000 in 2023. Today, on average, every third child aged 3 or younger is covered by nursery care, compared to every ninth child 8 years ago. This shows how much has been achieved.

Thanks to increasing the budget for the Toddler+ programme to PLN 5.5 billion, the number of those places is set to rise – more than 102,000 will be created, according to our plans. In July of this year, the Ministry of Family opened a continuous call for the programme.

Record low unemployment in Poland

We are committed to make Poland a safe place to live, where parents can pursue their professional careers and women are not afraid that maternity will exclude them from the labour market.

This is why we are changing the law and introducing new regulations that protect working parents. For this reason, we have extended parental leaves, introduced remote work and implemented EU directives that ensure, among others, a more equal footing on the labour market and facilities in achieving the balance between the family and professional life.

What else has been done?

• The minimum wage has been increased significantly – from PLN 1,750 in 2015 to PLN 3,600 at present. It will be PLN 4,242 from January next year, and PLN 4,300 from July 2024.
• We have introduced the minimum hourly rate, putting an end to cheap work for a few złoty an hour;
• We have eradicated the first day's pay syndrome;
• We have abolished the differentiation of the minimum wage based on the length of service;
• We have excluded the night work allowance and length-of-service allowance from the minimum wage; and from 2024 on, the same will apply to the allowance for working in special conditions.

Such actions are needed and expected by the society. The situation on the labour market in Poland is good. We have a record low unemployment rate of 5%.

During the pandemic, we allocated hundreds of millions złoty to supporting businesses and saving jobs. Let me remind you – millions of jobs. We avoided a full blown crisis on the labour market and tragedies of many families. Loss of a job causes enormous stress, and is a tragedy for real-life people and their families. We managed to avoid that," points out Minister Marlena Maląg. 

According to the Eurostat methodology, the unemployment rate in our country was 2.8% in July of this year, the same as in the month before. This gave us the third place in the European Union in terms of the unemployment level, after Malta and the Czech Republic. In July of this year, the unemployment rate in the European Union was 5.9%.

Mom in the labour market

The situation of women is also improving. Despite the "concerns" of the opponents of our social policy, additional support provided to families under successive social programmes has not had a negative impact on the labour market or led masses of women to resign from employment. Just the opposite, the employment rate among women with children is continually on the rise," notes the Minister of Family.

Since 2015, the employment rate among women in Poland (aged 20-64 years) has increased by 9.3% percentage points (from 60.9% in 2015 to 70.2% in 2022), compared to 6.1 percentage points in the EU. Poland is therefore among countries with the highest increase in this rate across the EU.

Changes in the Labour Code

In order to facilitate combining professional and private life, we have implemented in Polish law the provisions of EU directives on work-life balance for parents and guardians, and of the directive on transparent and predictable working conditions.

The said changes give parents the right to individual parental leave.

• we have increased the total duration of this leave to 41 weeks for both parents (in the case of giving birth to one child) or 43 weeks (in the case of a multiple birth),
• furthermore, for both parents of seriously ill children (the "For Life" programme) by additional 24 weeks, i.e. up to 65 weeks,
• we have included in the parental leave a non-transferrable part of that leave in the amount of 9 weeks for each parent,
• in addition, we have made the right to the parental leave independent from whether or not the mother is employed (insured) on the day of the birth,
• we have also provided for wider use of flexible organisation of work to expand the workers' entitlement to adjust their work organisation to their individual needs,
• we have introduced a ban on any preparations for redundancies and on terminating the employment relationship during pregnancy, parental leave and during the exercise any other parental entitlements.

We have also permanently introduced remote work into the Labour Code in an important step towards creating a modern labour market that meets the changing needs of employers and workers, including workers who are parents.