Processes of Change in the Social Structureof Poland's Rural Population in the Years 1991-2013

摘要

The article discusses changes in the social structure of rural population in the years 1991-2013. In that period the share of farmers decreased from 46 to 27, the share of workers increasing from 33 to 45 and the share of middle class - from 15 to 27. These changes are the result of three overlapping processes: deagrarianisation / depeasantization (the specific, two-phase "end" of the peasants), proletarianization (saturation of rural community by the representatives of social groups classifiedas blue-collar workers) and gentrification (i.e. the growth of middle class, also called bourgeois). In Poland, those processes took a different course than in the West: they are not only shifted in time, but they also overlap. The article is based on the data from 1991, 2003 and 2013.