'It is not something we consciously do': Polish couples struggles to maintain gender equality after the birth of their first child

The chapter investigates how couples with non-normative work-care plans manage to realize their ideals of fairness in the Polish context, which offers little institutional support for working parents. Poland is a country in transition, and so are norms regarding parenthood. The couples analysed in this study were trying their best to navigate in these circumstances, given their commitment to shared earning and caring. Their plans for the period after the maternity leave included reducing paid work hours, relying on grandparents’ help with the childcare and hiring babysitters. While all interviewed couples managed to realize some form of non-normative work-care divisions, these arrangements came at high emotional costs. The analyses put a specific focus on three couples in which the women expressed strong commitment to their further career development during pregnancy, and follows them through the early stages of parenthood and their experiences as working parents committed to fair sharing.