Institute of Social Economy

Institute of Social Economy (In Polish: Instytut Gospodarstwa Społecznego - IGS) was founded in 1920. Until 1941 it was run by eminent Polish sociologist Ludwik Krzywicki. The idea behind the creation of the Institute was identifying the social problems of contemporary Poland and development of theory and practice of social politics. In the interwar period the Institute focused on: Polish standards of living, national insurance, activity of local governments and unemployemnt in the cities and in the country. One of the methods of studying social reality was analysis of memoirs. As a result of a competition the Institute published 'Memoirs of the Unemployed' (1933), 'Memoirs of Peasants' (1935-1936) and 'Memoirs of Emigrants' (1939). Institute employees used memoir writing as a sociological material which many valuable analyses were based on. The Institute promoted active social politics with regard to social issues.

After the Second World War the Institute was reestablished in 1957 and drew on the traditional research threads. Initially, local unemployment issues were researched, as well as employment, work conditions, standards of living, workers' self-government, career of women, family and in the broad sense of the term, social security. In 1963-1968 the Institute conducted the first in Poland representative sampling study of needs of the elderly and family in connection with career of women.

Since 1990 the Institute has been researching: standards of living of families considering spatial diversification, EU labour market issues, unemployment and poverty, situation of the elderly, social care, level of social-medical need satisfaction in local environment. Referring to the prewar tradition the Institute organises competitions for memoirs. To date competitions for best 'Emigrant Memoirs', 'Poles in Lithuania Memoirs', 'Poles in the East Memoirs' (Belarus, Ukraine, Kazachstan), 'New Generation of Polish Peasants Memoirs' and 'Unemployed Memoirs' have been organised. More than 30 volumes of memoirs have been published as a result.

The Institute also focuses on carrying out tasks of social politics on the national, regional and local levels, as well as on the way the objects of social policy function.

The study results and experience in the research is applied by the employees during classes. They enrich the theoretical lectures with practical conclusions.