Dictionary of Women Experts

Biography

Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl (26 September 1928, Łódź – 10 December 2023, Warsaw) was a Polish economist whose research focused on consumption, home economics and the role of marketing and advertising in the socialist economy. She was the author of pioneering works on consumer practices during the economic crisis as well as one of the founders of the consumer movement in Poland.

Family & social background

Teresa Pałaszewska was born in Łódź, into the craftsman family of Eugeniusz Pałaszewski and Genowefa, nee Sobieska. In 1940, the family was forcibly relocated by the Nazis to Warsaw. Following the Warsaw uprising of 1944, Pałaszewska was deported to the Nazi concentration camps of Mauthausen, Ravensbrück and Buchenwald. After the war ended, she returned to Warsaw and graduated from Juliusz Słowacki High School in 1947. From 1947 to 1954, she studied at the Main School of Planning and Statistics and graduated with a master’s degree. In 1961, she married Tadeusz Reindl, one of the founders of the Institute of Industrial Design; and in 1970 gave birth to their son, Tomasz.

Education and career path

As early as 1950, even before defending her master’s thesis, Pałaszewska started working at the Institute of Trade and Collective Nutrition, which in 1976 was transformed into the Institute of Internal Trade and Services (renamed in 1983 as the Institute of Internal Market and Consumption). In 1965, she obtained her doctorate in economics, based on the thesis “Consumption of durable goods as an element of economic growth”. She became an associate professor in 1984 and a full professor in 1994. Besides her research work at the Institute of Internal Trade and Consumption, she conducted teaching activities at the Main School of Planning and Statistics during the years 1952 to 1957, 1968 to 1970 and 1973 to 1977. During the 1960s and 1970s, she taught numerous courses for the Ministries of Internal Trade and Services, Labor and Social Affairs, and Finance, as well as for cooperative organizations such as “Społem”. From 1985 onwards, she was employed at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) as head of the Home Economics Department.

Intellectual influences

When Pałaszewska-Reindl started her academic career, home economics and consumption were not popular fields of research. Her work, however, was considered highly innovative, which is why she was hired as the head of the Home Economics Department at SGGW. Since home economics was associated with food and nutrition research, she collaborated with Stanisław Berger, one of the founders of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Technology. As a leader of several so-called node projects, Pałaszewska-Reindl gathered researchers from various backgrounds around her. She encouraged her younger academic colleagues as well as PhD students to take up innovative topics such as the role of marketing in the socialist economy, changing consumption patterns, and coping strategies during times of economic crisis. In this way, she contributed to building a community of researchers focused on home economics at the SGGW. For this reason, she is remembered for being very supportive, especially towards young scientists.

Local and national work and activism

Throughout her work at the Institute of Trade and Collective Nutrition (later the Institute of Internal Market and Consumption) Pałaszewska-Reindl addressed the problems of consumption in the socialist economy. At SGGW, she initiated multidisciplinary research on the consumer behaviors of individual households and on the role of marketing in a centrally-planned economy. She was one of the first to investigate the relationship between consumption and the transformation of the Polish economy after 1989, and to raise the subject of consumer rights. In addition to her research activities, she was president of the Polish branch of a global company specializing in market research.

From the beginning of her academic career, she was active in professional and social organizations, such as the Polish Economic Society, the Polish Sociological Association, and the Polish Society of the Household Economics. She was among the founders of the Polish Society of Marketing (established in 1976), and the Consumer Federation (established in 1981). During the years 1971 to 1985 she worked as an editor of the journal “Handel Wewnętrzny” (Internal Trade). As well as this, she was active in the Trade Union of the Employees of the Trade and Cooperatives from 1950 to 1981. From 1970 to 1974 she was a member of the Main Board of the League of Women. She regularly contributed to Gospodarstwo Domowe (Home Economics) – a bimonthly published by the Home Economics Committee affiliated to the League.

International engagement

Pałaszewska-Reindl participated in numerous international conferences, both in the Eastern bloc and the West, developing strong connections primarily with academic partners in France, Germany and the United States. From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s she represented Poland in the Demand Research Working Group of the COMECON and in the International Federation of Home Economics. In 1993 she became an honorary member of the Kappa Omicron Nu society, which brought together home economics lecturers in the US. In the same year, together with the French partners, she developed the curricula for a one-year postgraduate study of marketing and management in agribusiness.

Research and activism with an emphasis on feminist knowledge

Initially, Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl’s academic and organizational activities were not focused on women’s issues. However, as soon as her research began to focus on individual households, she started to address issues such as unpaid work performed by women and the relationship between women’s professional activities and their domestic roles. In articles published by Gospodarstwo Domowe in the 1970s and 1980s, she advocated for modernizing housework to release women from their double burden. During the 1980s, she recognized the gendered aspects of Poland’s economic crisis. In her fundamental work Polish Households. Everyday Life during the Crisis (1986) she argued that women were the most affected by the crisis because of adaptive strategies based mostly on their effort.

Legacy and impact

Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl authored about 200 monographs, articles, book chapters and reviews. She contributed to the development of home economics as an academic discipline and initiated multidisciplinary research on the consumption and consumer behaviors of individual households. Although gender was not a central focus of her research, she recognized its importance in her analysis.

Selected Publications

Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl, Konsumpcja dóbr trwałego użytku w Polsce, Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, 1966

Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl (ed.), Konsumpcja w gospodarstwach domowych lat osiemdziesiątych: praca zbiorowa, Katowice: Akademia Ekonomiczna, 1992

Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl (ed.), Polskie gospodarstwa domowe: życie codzienne w kryzysie: praca zbiorowa, Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych,1986. 

Bibliography

Krystyna Gutowska, Profesor Teresa Pałaszewska-Reindl „Agricola. Pismo SGGW” 2024, nr 116, s. 46- 48