The majority of Poles believe that a good education is important for achieving success in life.
In a survey by Polish Panel Survey POLPAN on the question of happiness, respondents were asked 'What do we need to achieve success in life?’
As many as 69 percent answered education, although the social structure survey shows that this is a 10 percent decrease over the last decade.
The Polish Panel Survey POLPAN has been carried out continuously for 33 years.
Every five years, scientists from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences conduct individual, face-to-face interviews with the same people, but for every survey they add younger participants to make the results more representative.
Ilona Wysmułek from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS, responsible for summarising the study results, said: “Although the views of the entire Polish society are changing as time passes, the study shows that generation experiences actually have a significant impact on the perception of success factors.”
In 1988, only 37 percent respondents believed that hard work was essential or very important for achieving success in life. This pessimistic view gradually changed and in 2018 almost twice as many respondents (67 percent) perceived hard work as an important factor leading to success.
The view that good education is important for success was expressed by 60 percent of Poles in 1988. Poles. In subsequent years, at the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of 2000s, this percentage increased to about 80 percent.
Over the last decade, however, there was a decrease by about 10 percentage points.
Wysmułek said that the 'crisis' generation (born 1956 - 1959), which entered adulthood during the period of the political and economic crisis of the 1980s, continues to demonstrate greater mistrust in the importance of individual effort and personal abilities.
But the survey also found that the 'transformation' generation also (born 1968 - 1971) shows a smaller faith in meritocracy than the oldest 'small stabilization' generation (born 1940-1944), and the youngest 'open borders' generation (born ca. 1986).
PAP - Science in Poland, Urszula Kaczorowska
uka/ ekr/ kap/
tr. RL
