Intergenerational transmission of poverty: a challenge for Poland

Abstract

This article argues that urban poverty pockets emerged in Poland in the course of the system transformation towards capitalism. The main poverty drivers were the three overlapping processes: de-industrialization, ‘dewelfarization’ and de-institutionalization of the family accompanied by the devolution of social care management from the central to the local government. The enclaves of poverty emerged as a result of better-off residents leaving dilapidated blocks of flats and both spontaneous and deliberate accommodation of poorer citizens in these houses as social housing residents. In these areas, poverty tends to take root and reproduce in subsequent generations. The article is based on a 20-year study carried out in the city of Łódź under the author’s supervision. The article summarizes the findings obtained from three sources: 1) narrative interviews held twice — in 1998 and 2008 — among 90 adults belonging to the subsequent generations of a certain extended family residing in a poverty enclave; 2) 73 in-depth interviews with teenage mothers residing in poverty enclaves, 3) a quantitative survey of 500 13-year-old pupils attending schools located in poverty enclaves. The author arrives at the conclusion that poverty enclaves in Łódź resemble neighbourhoods of relegation as conceptualized by Loic Wacquant.