Work in biographical experience of three generations of women from enclaves of poverty in Łódź

Abstract

Łódź is renowned as a city of working women. For over two hundred years, the development of the city, the lives and professional experiences of its residents, especially its women, have been intertwined with textile and clothing industry which has offered employment primarily to them. The paper draws attention to the role of gainful employment in the biographical experience of three generations of Łódź women in terms of the shaping of their fortunes. It focuses on the major role played by changes in the Łódź labour market in terms of the escape from or descent into poverty by female residents of industrial Łódź. These changes are determined by historical events (World War II) but above all by socio-economic processes i.e. the economic downturn in the interwar years, post-war systemic transformation and the systemic transformation of the 90s. In the case of the older generation of female residents of Łódź, the post-war systemic transformation, mainly the process of intensive industrialisation and nationalisation of industry, while guaranteeing a broad access to professional work, offered an opportunity to escape the poverty they experienced in the interwar period in their families of origin; an opportunity which many of them grasped. As regards the generation of their daughters who entered adulthood in the late 70s and early 80s, they undertook occupational activity without major problems, as their mothers did. Work offered them the opportunity to maintain a relatively stable material situation in the next generation. The process of restructuring of the Łódź textile industry which started in the 90s impacted significantly on the fates of women of the middle generation and the younger generation that followed. As a consequence of these changes, the middle generation of women lost the opportunity to maintain stable employment. Younger women find it impossible to gain employment at all and are thereby rendered redundant in the labor market.