Here’s What We Do and Don’t Know About the Effects of Remote Work.

 

"Three years into a mass workplace experiment, we are beginning to understand more about how work from home is reshaping workers’ lives and the economy.

When workplaces are remade by a tectonic shift — women flooding into the work force, the rise of computing — it typically takes some time for economists, psychologists, sociologists and other scholars to gather data on its effects.

So when employers moved suddenly to adopt remote work during the pandemic, with the share of employed Americans working exclusively from home rising to 54 percent in 2020 from 4 percent in 2019, researchers leaped to examine the effects of remote work on employees and the economy at large. Now the early results are emerging. They reveal a mixed economic picture, in which many workers and businesses have made real gains under remote work arrangements, and many have also had to bear costs.

Broadly, the portrait that emerges is this: Brick-and-mortar businesses suffered in urban downtowns, as many people stopped commuting. Still, some kinds of businesses, like grocery stores, have been able to gain a foothold in the suburbs. At the same time, rents rose in affordable markets as remote and hybrid workers left expensive urban housing.

Working mothers have generally benefited from the flexibility of being able to work remotely — more of them were able to stay in the work force. But remote work also seems to bring some steep penalties when it comes to career advancement for women.

Studies of productivity in work-from-home arrangements are all over the map. Some papers have linked remote work with productivity declines of between 8 and 19 percent, while others find drops of 4 percent for individual workers; still other research has found productivity gains of 13 percent or even 24 percent.

Nick Bloom, an economist at Stanford and a prolific scholar on remote work, said the new set of studies shows that productivity differs between remote workplaces depending on an employer’s approach — how well trained managers are to support remote employees and whether those employees have opportunities for occasional meet-ups.

Researchers tend to agree that many workplaces have settled into a new hybrid phase, where offices are at about half their prepandemic occupancy levels and about a quarter of American workdays are done from home. That suggests some of the effects of remote work may stick.

As Mr. Bloom put it: “This is the new normal.”

Urban Downtowns

Photos of urban downtowns in their Covid lockdowns are eerie, with silent streets, wilted office plants and dusty cubicles.

When some 50 million Americans started working from home in the early days of the pandemic, brick-and-mortar retailers clustered in urban downtowns were hurting. The number of downtown clothing stores fell 8 percent from late 2019 to late 2021, according to a study using transaction data from 70 million Chase Bank customers. General goods stores in downtowns — including anything from department stores to florists to book sellers — fell 7 percent, and grocery stores declined 2 percent.

Some of those businesses followed remote workers to the suburbs. During that period, there was a roughly 3 percent increase in the number of suburban grocery stores, slightly outpacing the urban decline, particularly in suburbs where remote work levels were high.

In the coming years, the movement of retailers from downtowns to suburbs is likely to prove difficult for low-income workers who cannot afford to live in these areas, some of them affluent, where retailers may be hiring. This problem is already visible in the Bay Area. Take the case of Maria Cerros-Mercado, who used to work at a salad shop in San Francisco, a 20-minute walk from her home. Now she commutes by Uber from the city to the shop’s new location in Mill Valley, a wealthy suburb in Marin County.

But some economists argue that many Americans stand to gain from the effects of remote work because rents in rural and suburban areas are likely to begin dropping. One recent study used data from postal service address changes, rent changes on Zillow and the construction industry to project the potential rent effects of remote and hybrid work. The pandemic saw a temporary rent spike in previously affordable areas — think Dallas; Manchester, N.H.; and upstate New York — because many remote workers left the priciest housing markets once they gave up daily commutes. As construction catches up with that new demand, economists say, rents will fall back down.

“If you zoom out, one of the big problems in housing in the last ten years has been affordability,” said Jack Liebersohn, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “This could help simply because people can live in more affordable areas, where we can afford to build.”

And there could be an unexpected bonus: A study in Britain showed that burglaries declined nearly 30 percent in areas with high rates of working from home, which the researchers attributed to the increase of “eyes on the street” in those neighborhoods.

Working Women

For decades, a working mother’s schedule has felt like an equation that won’t balance. Many women are expected to still be at their desks at 5 p.m., and simultaneously at school pickup. They’re supposed to be in an office, and also available at home when their children are coughing and turned away from day care. (Ample data shows that this bind tends to constrict mothers more than fathers.)

Remote work slightly eases that conundrum, according to research using prepandemic data from economists at the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California. In fields like computer science, marketing and communications, which welcomed remote work from 2009 to 2019, working mothers’ employment rates increased. There was an almost one-to-one correlation: When remote work rose 2 percent, there was a 2 percent rise in mothers’ employment. Even so, the employment rates for working mothers still lagged those of women without children, though remote work diminished that gap.

Claudia Goldin, who this week was awarded a Nobel Prize in economics, has shown that women tend to seek jobs with more flexibility so they can take care of household responsibilities. That has contributed to the gender pay gap.

While some working women, particularly mothers, might gain from being remote, women tend to see greater penalties when they do so. In a study of engineers at a Fortune 500 company, remote work had a negative effect on the amount of feedback junior employees got on their work — with the penalties more pronounced for women.

“Proximity has a bigger impact on women’s comfort with asking follow-up questions,” said Emma Harrington, an economist at the University of Virginia, who conducted both the study on remote work’s effect on feedback, as well as the one on mothers’ work force participation.

Men appeared more comfortable asking clarifying questions even if they weren’t physically near colleagues.

Women may also face more undeserved questions about their productivity, wherever they work. In a series of studies with more than 2,000 participants, researchers in Wisconsin and Canada found that both men and women were more likely to suspect women than men of shirking work. Some of these employees worked from home and some did not.

When study participants saw through video footage that a female employee wasn’t at her desk, this was attributed to something nonwork-related 47 percent of the time; for men, it was attributed to nonwork activities just 34 percent of the time.

“It’s possible that the study participants might be responding to the realities of the world in which women sometimes do bear more household responsibilities,” added Ms. Harrington, who wasn’t involved in this study.

Remote Productivity

Whether work-from-anywhere setups hurt productivity or help it has been a burning question for executives.

Early evidence came in a 2013 paper from Mr. Bloom and others about a call center in China that allowed some employees to be mostly remote for 9 months, and found that productivity rose 13 percent. Just under 10 percent of this boost was attributed to people taking fewer breaks, and 4 percent to them doing more calls per minute because their working environments were quieter.

But during the pandemic when millions of workers suddenly shifted to being remote, the effects were more complex. The arrangements hadn’t been figured out in advance. The move to remote work wasn’t voluntary. So the results were more scattered.

A study of an Asian information technology company’s remote employees during the pandemic showed a decline in productivity of 8 to 19 percent. Another, looking at an American call center, found that when workers went remote, they made 12 percent fewer calls. On the other hand, a study of the productivity of economic researchers in the United States during the pandemic found a roughly 24 percent increase in their output.

These disparate findings leave some questions unanswered. “How on earth can you get a more than 30 point spread between them?” Mr. Bloom asked.

“It all comes down to how workers are managed. If you set up fully remote with good management and incentives, and people are meeting in person, it can work. What doesn’t seem to work is sending people home with no face-time at all.””

Didėjantis nepasitenkinimas dėl pagalbos Ukrainai kabo virš Lenkijos rinkimų

 „Praėjusiais metais Lenkija buvo viena tvirčiausių Ukrainos rėmėjų. Tačiau dešiniųjų spaudimas daugiau dėmesio skirti vidaus problemoms stumia šią paramą į sekmadienio rinkimų pagrindą.

 

     Radikaliųjų dešiniųjų kandidatas, kandidatuojantis į parlamentą giliuose Lenkijos pietuose, nori sumažinti mokesčius, verslo reglamentus ir socialines pašalpas. Vis dėlto ryškiausias jo pažadas nuimti nedidelę Ukrainos vėliavėlę, kuri pernai buvo iškelta rotušės balkone, kaip solidarumo su Lenkijos rytine kaimyne gestas.

 

     Jis nori, kad ji būtų nuimta ne todėl, kad palaiko Rusiją, o todėl, kad Lenkija turėtų sutelkti dėmesį į pagalbą savo žmonėms, o ne pergyventi už Ukrainą.

 

     Šalyje, kurioje praėjusiais metais milijonai piliečių susibūrė, kad padėtų bėgantiems ukrainiečiams, o vyriausybė pasiryžo tiekti ginklus, skirtus naudoti prieš rusus, skundai dėl Ukrainos uždėtos naštos buvo apriboti nedideliu pakraščiu. Tačiau sekmadienį numatyti visuotiniai rinkimai stumia juos į centrinę sceną.

 

     Taip yra daugiausia dėl tokių kandidatų, kaip Ryszardas Wilkas, nedidelio fotografijos verslo savininkas pietų Lenkijos miestelyje Nowy Sacz, balsų apie Ukrainą. Regione jis yra Konfederacja arba Konfederacijos, nepaklusnaus ekonominių libertarų, prieš vaxxers, prieš imigraciją nusiteikusių ir karingų nacionalistų sąjungos, kuri dabar neįprastai vienija opoziciją pagalbai Ukrainai, rinkimų vėliavnešys regione.

 

     „Mes jau davėme jiems per daug“, – šios savaitės pradžioje duodamas interviu sakė ponas Wilkas. Jis keliavo per kampaniją per savo kalnuotą ir labai konservatyvų gimtąjį regioną, ilgą Lenkijos dešiniosios valdančiosios partijos „Teisė ir teisingumas“ paramos bastioną.

 

     „Mes nenorime, kad Ukraina pralaimėtų, bet našta Lenkijai ir jos mokesčių mokėtojams yra per didelė“, – pridūrė p. Wilkas. „Lenkija turėtų padėti lenkams“.

 

     Didėjantis nepasitenkinimas Lenkijoje ateina kritiniu metu Ukrainai, kuri kovoja prieš Rusiją ir stengiasi sustabdyti Vakarų sąjungininkų paramos eroziją. Sekmadienį Lenkijoje vyks balsavimas po prieš dvi savaites vykusių rinkimų kaimyninėje Slovakijoje, kuriuos laimėjo Rusijai palanki populistinė partija, norinti sustabdyti ginklų siuntimą į Ukrainą.

 

     Liberalai, ilgą laiką laikomi ekstremistinių nusikaltėlių rinkiniu, Konfederacja ėmė nerimauti dėl klausimo, kiek Lenkija turėtų padėti Ukrainai, kaip potencialiai balsų laimėtojo, ir pareiškė, kad nuomonės tyrimai rodo kuklias, bet augančias antiukrainiškų nuotaikų sroves.

 

     „Konfederacja“ vis dar yra mažiau partija, nei nišų ir dažnai prieštaringų priežasčių kratinys – nuo mažų valstybių libertarizmo iki didžiosios valstybės nacionalizmo, tačiau „jie visi nusiteikę prieš ukrainiečius, nors dėl skirtingų priežasčių“, – sakė Lenkijos ekspertas Przemyslawas Witkowskis. kraštutinių dešiniųjų, kuris dėsto Collegium Civitas, privačiame universitete Varšuvoje.

 

     „Antiukrainietiškas jausmas ir simpatija Rusijai yra vienas iš nedaugelio elementų, kurie juos visus sujungia“, – pridūrė jis.

 

     „Konfederacja“ neturi jokių šansų laimėti sekmadienį, o apklausos rodo, kad jos visuomenės palaikymas, vasarą išaugęs iki 15 proc., sumažėjo po to, kai „Teisė ir teisingumas“ pradėjo kartoti kai kurias jos nuomones, ypač dėl Ukrainos. Grasindama aplenkti valdančiąją partiją, kuri pati yra labai konservatyvi jėga, kraštutinėje dešinėje per griežtus rinkimus, Konfederacja padėjo Lenkijos vyriausybei pažaboti savo anksčiau nežabotą entuziazmą palaikyti Ukrainą.

 

     Dėl to pastarosiomis savaitėmis Varšuvos ir Kijevo santykiai smarkiai pablogėjo, ypač dėl Ukrainos grūdų importo. Praeitą mėnesį ši problema sukėlė nerimą, kai Lenkijos vyriausybė, vadovaujama Teisės ir teisingumo, uždraudė grūdų importą iš Ukrainos, siekdama apsaugoti Lenkijos ūkininkus ir išvengti pertrūkimų savo gyvybiškai svarbioje kaimo bazėje.

 

     Ukrainos prezidentas Volodymyras Zelenskis padidino įtampą, sakydamas kalbą Jungtinėse Tautose, kad Lenkija, blokuodama grūdų tiekimą, susiliejo su Rusija. O praėjusį mėnesį Ukraina dėl grūdų pateikė skundą prieš Lenkiją Pasaulio prekybos organizacijai.

 

     Įsiutinta dėl pono Zelenskio nedėkingumo, Lenkija pasmerkė Ukrainos prezidento pastabą kaip „stebinančią“ ir „nesąžiningą“. Ji taip pat trumpai užsiminė, kad stabdo ginklų tiekimą, tačiau kilus triukšmui pareiškė, kad ginklai tęsis.

 

     Bijodami prarasti Įstatymui ir teisingumui rinkėjus, Ukrainai skeptiškus , Konfederacja lyderiai Varšuvoje parengė 101 milijardo Lenkijos zlotų (apie 24 milijardų JAV dolerių) įstatymo projektą, skirtą padengti visus pinigus, jų teigimu, Ukraina skolinga Lenkijai už karinę ir kitą pagalbą, pavyzdžiui, pagalbą. milijonams ukrainiečių, pabėgusių nuo konflikto.

 

     Nowy Sacz – rinkimų apygardos, apimančios dirbamą žemę ir kurortinius miestus, sostinėje, ponas Wilkas išsiuntė laišką vietos merui, nesėkmingai reikalaudamas pašalinti Ukrainos vėliava nuo rotušės ir priartinti šalpos išmokų pabėgėliams iš Ukrainos pabaigą.

 

     „Mes nematome priežasties mokėti pašalpas užsieniečiams, nematome jokios priežasties ukrainiečiams gauti lenkiškas pensijas“, – rašė p. Wilkas. „Nematome jokios priežasties kabinti vėliavą šalies, kuri mums skelbia prekybos karą ir skundžiasi PPO.

 

     Sekmadienį vyksiantys rinkimai, kurie, kaip rodo apklausos, bus įtemptos lenktynės tarp Įstatymo ir teisingumo ir jos stipriausios varžovės Pilietinės koalicijos, centro dešiniųjų ir liberalių jėgų susivienijimo, vargu ar nuves Lenkiją į tą patį atvirai antiukrainišką kelią, kaip Vengrija ar Slovakija.

 

     Tačiau kova dėl balsų įvedė tokį nesantaikos lygį, kuris jau sustiprino Kremliaus viltis, kad Vakarų solidarumas su Ukraina nyksta net Lenkijoje, kur priešiškumas Rusijai yra labai gilus.

 

     Ir jei, kaip rodo nuomonės apklausos, tikėtina, kad nė viena iš dviejų geriausių partijų negaus pakankamai vietų, kad pati suformuotų naują vyriausybę, Konfederacja gali tapti potencialiu karaliumi, nors ir tvirtina, kad neprisijungs prie nė vienos iš pirmaujančių partijų koalicinėje vyriausybėje.

 

     Jo penkių taškų rinkimų manifestas žada mažesnius mokesčius, supaprastintus reglamentus verslininkams, pigesnį būstą visiems ir „nulį socialinių pašalpų ukrainiečiams“.

 

     Programa pakeičia ankstesnę darbotvarkę, kurią 2019 metais pasiūlė vienas iš jos nacionalinių lyderių Slawomiras Mentzenas: „Mes nenorime: žydų, homoseksualų, abortų, mokesčių ir Europos Sąjungos“.

 

     P. Wilkas, vadovaujantis partijos kandidatų sąrašui pietuose, sakė, kad ankstesnė programa buvo skirta juokauti ir neatspindi dabartinės Konfederacjos krypties. „Mes tikrai esame dešiniųjų partija, bet daugiausia ekonomikos, o ne kitų dalykų“, – sakė jis.

 

     85 procentai lenkų, remiantis šią vasarą Varšuvos universiteto paskelbtu tyrimu, nori padėti Ukrainai, tačiau Ukrainą palankiai vertinančių respondentų dalis birželį sumažėjo iki 40 procentų nuo 62 procentų sausį.

 

     Tyrimas parodė, kad „pirmą kartą susiduriame su situacija, kai dauguma lenkų (55 proc.) yra prieš papildomą pagalbą Ukrainai“.

 

     Praėjusį sekmadienį „Konfederacja“ rinkėjams organizuota kepsninė kalnų kurortiniame Zakopanės miestelyje sutraukė vos keletą žmonių, nors buvo šalta ir lietinga. Tie, kurie dalyvavo, visi vyrai, visiškai palaikė partijos poziciją Ukrainos atžvilgiu.

 

      „Niekada netoleruosiu, kad čia, Lenkijoje, plevėsuotų Ukrainos vėliava“, – sakė profesionalus muzikantas Wojciechas Tylka, atsivedęs tris savo vaikus, kad išgirstų pono Wilko ir kolegų kandidatų priešinimąsi mokesčiams, socialinėms pašalpoms ir Ukrainos lenkų išteklių išeikvojimui. „Turėtų plevėsuoti tik Lenkijos vėliava“.

 

     „Jei ukrainiečiams tai nepatinka, jie turėtų eiti namo“, – pridūrė p. Tylka.

 

     Įvairaus plauko politikais pasibjaurėjęs, p. Tylka teigė, kad daugiau, nei 15 metų nebalsavo rinkimuose, tačiau sekmadienį tikrai balsuos už „Konfederacja“.

 

     Beviltiškai palaikydama konservatyvius regiono rinkėjus, Teisė ir teisingumas pasiuntė vieną žinomiausių savo šalies veikėjų Ryszardą Terleckį vadovauti jos kandidatų sąrašui rajone.

 

     Pirmadienį pasirodęs audringuose priešrinkiminiuose debatuose viename Nowy Sacz universitete, kuriame dalyvavo ponas Wilkas ir dar keturi opozicijos kandidatai, J. Terleckis pareiškė, kad „Teisė ir teisingumas“ ir toliau padės Ukrainai, „tačiau turi atsižvelgti ir į Lenkijos interesus“. Jis gynė vyriausybės draudimą importuoti Ukrainos grūdus.

 

     Józefas Klimowskis, piemuo, kurio avių banda užblokavo prieigą prie neseniai vykusio pono Wilko kampanijos renginio, sakė, kad jam nerūpi politika, bet balsuotų už Teisę ir teisingumą, nes ji rado rėmėjų jo mėgstamai vietinei ledo ritulio komandai.

 

     Po diskusijos vietos Teisės ir teisingumo politikas Arturas Czerneckis sakė suprantantis, kodėl ponas Wilkas paskelbė Ukrainos ir jos vėliavos numerį Nowy Sacz miesto rotušėje: „Kiekviena partija ieško būdų, kaip išsiskirti“, – sakė jis. Tačiau būdamas miesto tarybos pirmininko pavaduotojas M. Černeckis pridūrė, kad neleis balsuoti dėl vėliavos klausimo, bent jau kol nesibaigs rinkimai.

 

     „Tiesiog tikiuosi, kad po rinkimų viskas nurims“, – sakė jis."

 

Growing Wariness of Aid to Ukraine Hangs Over Polish Election

 

"Last year, Poland was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. But pressure from the right to focus more on domestic problems is pushing that support to the center stage of Sunday’s election.

The radical right-wing candidate running for Parliament in Poland’s deep south wants to slash taxes, regulations on business and welfare benefits. Most striking, however, is his vow to remove a small Ukrainian flag that was hoisted last year on a town hall balcony as a gesture of solidarity with Poland’s eastern neighbor.

He wants it taken down, not because he supports Russia, he says, but because Poland should focus on helping its own people, not cheering for Ukraine.

In a country where millions of citizens rallied last year to help fleeing Ukrainians, and where the government threw itself into providing weapons for use against Russians, complaints about the burden imposed by the Ukraine used to be confined to a tiny fringe. A general election set for Sunday, however, is pushing them toward center stage.

That is due in large part to the vocal carping about Ukraine from candidates like Ryszard Wilk, the owner of a small photography business in the southern Polish town of Nowy Sacz. He is the electoral standard-bearer in the region for Konfederacja, or Confederation, an unruly alliance of economic libertarians, anti-vaxxers, anti-immigration zealots and belligerent nationalists that is now unusually united in opposition to aiding Ukraine.

“We have already given them too much,” Mr. Wilk said in an interview early this week. He was traveling during a campaign swing through his mountainous and deeply conservative home region, a longtime bastion of support for Poland’s right-wing governing party, Law and Justice.

“We don’t want Ukraine to lose, but the burden on Poland and its taxpayers is too high,” Mr. Wilk added. “Poland should be helping Poles.”

The growing reservation in Poland comes at a critical time for Ukraine, which is struggling in its counteroffensive against Russia and scrambling to stem an erosion of support from Western allies. Sunday’s vote in Poland comes after an election two weeks ago in neighboring Slovakia that was won by a Russia-friendly populist party that wants to halt sending arms to Ukraine.

Long dismissed by liberals as a collection of extremist cranks, Konfederacja has jumped on the question of how much Poland should help Ukraine as a potential vote-winner, channeling what opinion surveys show to be modest but growing currents of anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

Konfederacja is still less a party than a jumble of niche and often contradictory causes — from small-state libertarianism to big-state nationalism — but “they are all anti-Ukrainian, though for different reasons,” said Przemyslaw Witkowski, an expert on Poland’s far-right who teaches at Collegium Civitas, a private university in Warsaw.

“Anti-Ukraine feeling and sympathy for Russia is one of the few elements that glues them all together,” he added.

Konfederacja has no chance of winning on Sunday and opinion polls indicate that its public support, which surged to 15 percent over the summer, slipped after Law and Justice started echoing some of its views, particularly on Ukraine. By threatening to outflank the governing party, itself a deeply conservative force, on the far right in a tight election, Konfederacja helped prod the Polish government into curbing its previously unbridled enthusiasm for backing Ukraine.

The result has been a sharp souring in recent weeks in relations between Warsaw and Kyiv, particularly over Ukrainian grain imports. The issue triggered an ill-tempered tiff last month when Poland’s government, led by Law and Justice, banned the import of grain from Ukraine in an effort to protect Polish farmers — and avoid defections in its vital rural base.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine exacerbated tensions by insinuating in a speech at the United Nations that Poland, by blocking grain deliveries, had aligned itself with Russia. And last month, Ukraine filed a complaint against Poland with the World Trade Organization over grain.

Infuriated by what it saw as Mr. Zelensky’s ingratitude, Poland denounced the Ukrainian president’s remark as “astonishing” and “unfair.” It also briefly suggested it was halting the delivery of weapons but, after an uproar, said arms would continue to flow.

Fearful of losing its grip on Ukraine-skeptic voters to Law and Justice, Konfederacja leaders in Warsaw drew up a bill totaling 101 billion Polish zloty (around $24 billion) to cover all the money they said Ukraine owed Poland for military and other aid like assistance to the millions of Ukrainians who fled the conflict.

In Nowy Sacz — the capital of an electoral district encompassing farmland and resort towns — Mr. Wilk sent a letter to the local mayor demanding, unsuccessfully, the removal of a Ukrainian flag from the town hall and an end to welfare payments to refugees from Ukraine.

“We see no reason to pay benefits to foreigners, we see no reason for Ukrainians to receive Polish pensions,” Mr. Wilk wrote. “We see no reason for hanging the flag of a country that is declaring a trade war on us and complaining to the W.T.O.”

Sunday’s election, which opinion polls indicate will be a tight race between Law and Justice and its strongest rival, Civic Coalition, a grouping of center-right and liberal forces, is unlikely to put Poland on the same openly anti-Ukrainian path as Hungary or Slovakia.

But the fight for votes has introduced a level of discord that has already comforted the Kremlin’s hopes that Western solidarity with Ukraine is fraying, even in Poland, where hostility to Russia runs very deep.

And if, as opinion polls suggest is likely, neither of the top two parties wins enough seats to form a new government on its own, Konfederacja could become a potential kingmaker, though it insists it won’t join either of the front-runners in a coalition government.

Its Five Point election manifesto promises lower taxes, simplified regulations for entrepreneurs, cheaper housing for everyone and “zero social benefits for Ukrainians.”

The program replaces an earlier agenda put forward by one of its national leaders, Slawomir Mentzen, in 2019: “We do not want: Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the European Union.”

Mr. Wilk, who heads the party’s list of candidates in the south, said the earlier program was meant as a joke and did not reflect Konfederacja’s current direction. “We are definitely a right-wing party, but mostly on economics, not this other stuff,” he said.

Surveys of public opinion suggest that bashing Ukraine is not something most Poles want, but that it resonates among some voters.

Eighty-five percent of Poles, according to a study released this summer by the University of Warsaw, want to help Ukraine, but the share of respondents with a strong preference in favor of Ukraine fell to 40 percent in June from 62 percent in January.

And the study found that “for the first time, we are dealing with a situation when the majority of Poles (55 percent) are against additional aid.”

An outdoor barbecue organized last Sunday by Konfederacja for voters in the mountain resort town of Zakopane drew only a handful of people, though it was cold and rainy. Those who did attend, all men, were fully behind the party’s stance on Ukraine.

 “I will never tolerate the Ukrainian flag flying here in Poland,” said Wojciech Tylka, a professional musician who brought his three children along to hear Mr. Wilk and fellow candidates rail against taxation, social benefits and Ukraine’s drain on Polish resources. “Only the Polish flag should fly.”

“If Ukrainians don’t like this, they should go home,” Mr. Tylka added.

Disgusted by politicians of all stripes, Mr. Tylka said he had not voted in an election for more than 15 years, but that he would definitely vote for Konfederacja on Sunday.

Desperate to hang on to conservative voters in the region, Law and Justice sent one of its best-known known national figures, Ryszard Terlecki, to lead its list of candidates in the district.

Appearing Monday at a raucous pre-election debate at a university in Nowy Sacz with Mr. Wilk and four other opposition candidates, Mr. Terlecki said that Law and Justice would continue to help Ukraine “but must also take Polish interests into account.” He defended the government’s ban on the import of Ukrainian grain.

Józef Klimowski, a shepherd whose flock of sheep blocked access to a recent campaign event for Mr. Wilk, said he didn’t care about politics but would vote for Law and Justice because it had found sponsors for his favorite local ice hockey team.

After the debate, Artur Czernecki, a local Law and Justice politician, said he understood why Mr. Wilk has made an issue of Ukraine and its flag on Nowy Sacz’s town hall: “Every party is looking for ways to stand out,” he said. But, as deputy speaker of the City Council, Mr. Czernecki added that he would not allow the flag issue to be put to a vote, at least not until the election is over.

“I just hope that after the election everything will calm down,” he said.”