Anna Kurowska, PhD, habil., Associate Professor, is the Head of the Department of Research Methods in Politics and Policy at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw. She also serves as Deputy Head of LABFAM – the Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics at the University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences. She is also a member of the Scientific Council for Political Science and Public Administration.
Her previous university and academic service includes membership of the University of Warsaw’s Anti-Mobbing Committee, the Council of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, and the Committee on Demographic Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Kurowska is a member of the International Network on Leave Policies & Research, the Work and Family Researchers Network, and the European Network for Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet Europe). From 2020 to 2025, she served on the ESPAnet Board. Her editorial experience includes serving as an International Editorial Advisor to Social Policy & Society and serving on the editorial boards of European Societies, Scientific Data, Social Policy Issues, and Studia Demograficzne. She has also worked for many years as an expert for the European Commission and the National Science Centre (NCN).
Prof. Kurowska has secured funding for several research projects through competitive calls of the National Science Centre and the Foundation for Polish Science. She has led the following projects:
· Short- and Long-Term Effects of the COVID-19 Outbreak Policy Responses on Partners’ Division of Paid and Unpaid Work and Their Labour Market Outcomes (OPUS).
· Fathers’ Freedom of Choice (Not) to Use Parental Leave (OPUS).
· State and Company-Level Work-Family Reconciliation Policies and Maternal Employment: An Analysis from a Capability Approach Perspective (BEETHOVEN).
· Reconciling Paid Work and Family Life in Poland from a Capability Approach Perspective (SONATA).
· Joint Influence of Family and Labour Market Policies on Labour Market Participation and Fertility Decisions of Men and Women (POWROTY).
From 2023 to 2025, she was a member of the Polish team implementing the Horizon Europe project rEUsilience. Between 2013 and 2018, she coordinated quantitative research within the Polish teams of two other projects funded by the European Commission: LIVEWHAT under the Seventh Framework Programme and TRANSSOL under Horizon 2020.
She publishes in leading journals indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, including Journal of European Social Policy, Social Indicators Research, Population and Development Review, Gender, Work & Organization, Social Policy & Administration, European Societies, American Behavioral Scientist, Acta Politica, Politics & Policy, and European Journal of Population.
She regularly presents her research at major international academic conferences, including ESPAnet, the European Consortium for Sociological Research Annual Conference, the Population Association of America Annual Meeting, and the Community, Work and Family Conference, where she has also coordinated thematic sessions. In 2023, she organised the 21st ESPAnet Europe Conference at the University of Warsaw and, in recognition of this work, received the title of Polish Congress Ambassador.
In 2026, she received an individual award from the Minister of Science and Higher Education for significant achievements in research.
Research interests:
work-family reconciliation policies; care regimes; the effects of social policy reforms and working from home on women’s employment, fertility intentions, fertility outcomes, the division of unpaid work within families, and work-life balance; the cultural conditions shaping these effects; the capability approach; and social indicators.