Social Security in Poland – cultural, historical and economical issues

Abstract

In the first place, the paper analyses the cultural-historical background of the social security in Poland. Given the largely enrooted Catholicism of the country, the development of the social teaching of the Catholic Church is surveyed. It is followed by a short history of the social security legislation in Poland from 1918 to 1997, and finally the current economical conditions of the system are analysed. The paper concludes with the opinion, that the current system, providing large social endowments to various strata of the population, generally answers the expectations of the people as well as corresponds to Catholic social teaching.

Keywords

• social security system
• catholic social teaching
• social solidarism