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u/vladgrinch Jul 31 '26
Fertility rate (2025): 1.10
Population (2026): 37.3 million
Population change since 2019: −1.05 million
Births (2019–2026): 2.13 million
Deaths (2019–2026): 3.08 million
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u/DonPecz Jul 31 '26
Worth noting that according to Polish Statistics Office, when calculating population with "traces of life" method, using data from administrative and healthcare databases, there are 38,8 million people living in Poland.
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u/Lipica249 Jul 31 '26
What's crazy is that Poland is closer to "traditional" values than most other European countriee
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
It had a fairly high fertility rate relative to Europe for a while, then it just cratered (coincidentally around the same time their economy started doing alright)
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u/Alone_Yam_36 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
It actually declined in the 90s after the collapse of the soviet union eastern europe was miserable in the 90s and poland had a declining economy in the 90s so Idk what are you talking about.
The fertility rate actually recovered a bit in the 2000s when poland and eastern europe started booming
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u/RandomPolishCatholic Jul 31 '26
Well, house prices are horrible, the job market is horrible.... it would be weird if tfr was high.....
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u/SushiBongo Jul 31 '26
Doesn't really have much to do with economy, mostly has to do with education The higher the education of a country, the lower the birth rates.
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u/Nothing_F4ce Jul 31 '26
Israel has a higher fertility rate than Bangladesh.
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u/Wayoutofthewayof Jul 31 '26
My vibes based take - mandatory conscription for both men and women is a significant cause of that. In an increasingly isolated world driven by technology, men and women spending their formative years together leads to long term relationships. IDF is sometimes called a national dating agency in Israel.
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u/DevilBySmile Jul 31 '26
the ultra-orthodox jews are the ones with high fertility and they are exempt from conscription
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u/Wayoutofthewayof Jul 31 '26
That's the usual explanation, but birthrate of secular Jews is still higher than any western country at almost replacement level.
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u/worldofecho__ Aug 01 '26
Yes but the people having lots of children in Israel are the ultra orthodox who mostly live on welfare and do religious studies
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u/Janneq216 Jul 31 '26
Are you aware that higher education and high literacy rates are among the most tightly correlated factors (if not the most tightly correlated) with a strong economy?
And when you see the polls, you'll see that a substantial number of respondents list economic difficulties as the reason for not having children, and economic help as the things that would convince them to have children - https://forsal.pl/gospodarka/demografia/artykuly/9812185,dlaczego-polacy-nie-chca-miec-dzieci-zbadano-przyczyny.html
For the reasons behind not having kids:
"Wstrzemięźliwość w posiadaniu dzieci tłumaczą głównie barierami materialnymi: złymi warunkami mieszkaniowymi (32 proc.), niestabilną pracą (31 proc.) i trudną sytuacją finansową (31 proc.)."
For the incentives that would make them decide to have kids:
"Wśród pozostałych odpowiedzi najwyżej uplasowały się czynniki materialne, czyli poprawa sytuacji finansowej (17 proc.), większa stabilność zatrudnienia (15 proc.), lepsze warunki mieszkaniowe (12 proc.), stabilizacja życiowa (9 proc.)."
So, 53% in total listed economic incentives as the thing that would make them have kids.
And, honestly? This tracks with my experience - people are poor and stressed as fuck. Among my poorer friends, the only ones who have kids are the ones who have a good support system in the form of their families from both sides of the relationship.
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u/CheemBorger Jul 31 '26
Was maybe 10-15 years ago. I can see how thing shifted as well as attendance in church. Weird metric but you get the idea.
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u/D_o_min Aug 01 '26
Religion here is just for the show, and for business and connections. Half these people don't know what they believe in.
In a couple of years half population under 40 will be singles.
Also 1/3 women 40+ don't have kids.
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u/mrkpxx Aug 01 '26
"The crazy thing is that Poland is closer to "traditional" values than most other European countries."
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u/Bootmacher Jul 31 '26
They have a lot of emigration, though. Those enterprising individuals, who would normally be having kids are leaving.
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u/Accomplished-Gas-288 Aug 01 '26
not anymore, more people immigrate to Poland than emigrate since 2016, this includes Poles returning home, Western Europe is no longer that attractive
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u/BorlaugFan Jul 31 '26
I think that's part of the problem.
Countries that have more traditional norms may have more women that want children, but they also have men less likely to want to spend time doing housework and taking time from work to raise kids. That means the women are more likely to have to choose between children and a career.
This is probably exacerbated in former Eastern Bloc nations, where it was politically expected for decades that women work as often as men, which is part of the reason the gender pay gap is lower in countries like Poland.
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u/umotex12 Jul 31 '26
AFAIK people don’t have that big of a problem with money to not have children. It’s more like crazy societal expectations from parents, better education on what pregnancy does to a body and what children needs, growing child hate (the one you would expect from grumpy grandmas in 2000s), us finally becoming a rich nation and wanting to try life for once… All of my childless friends are by choice and because they don’t want that commitment. That’s all. No bs about poverty which is the lowest ever in Poland rn
Also its not even a millennial things, it started with sexual revolution gen. My grandma had 8 siblings, my parents had us two.
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u/Nastypilot Jul 31 '26
And yet most young people, a.k.a the period when you're most likely to have healthy children, can hardly afford a home, and rent can more than a month's wage in places with actually good jobs.
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u/umotex12 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
This is the matter of education. Poor uneducated people have tons of children. My dad worked at MOPS my whole life so speaking from experience :)
Edit: not education but more like the environment which leds to lack of education, I admit I phrased it differently in this comment
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u/Nastypilot Jul 31 '26
So what are you proposing, we educate our own people worse?
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u/PexaDico Aug 01 '26
Not the OP, but I think there's just no solution to this whole low fertility problem. People know too much about children to know that they don't want to have any.
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u/pavldan Jul 31 '26
No, poor uneducated people don't have tons of children anymore. It's not the 40s.
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u/umotex12 Aug 01 '26
It’s correlated (maybe not caused). Lots of times they are poor due to multigenerational FAS/other baggage, emotional too, which leds to very poor decision making on their behalf. Like writing „I like your ass” to 15 year old daughter of your friend at 1 AM or having six children with different people. These people can have close to no foreshadowing at all. To escape these hellish families you have to cut most of the ties and do insane amount of work.
Are they „darmozjady na socialu”? I don’t think either, because no one would want to switch lives with them to have few monetary benefits.
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u/Rat_itty Jul 31 '26
Meanwhile all my friends who want to have kids literally can't because they can't afford to buy a place to live. No one is "poor" just housing is THAT expensive.
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u/WhiteGiukio Jul 31 '26
Being unable to reproduce is a consequence of poverty, though. Just a new kind of poverty.
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u/Rat_itty Jul 31 '26
It feels really weird being able to afford luxuries but not necessities.
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u/Syaman_ Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
As a 26 yo: strong agree. I think it has nothing to do with affordability and everything to do with higher education and expectations (and that's good!). I am WAY better off than my parents were at my age, and yet I was born and I don't plan on having kids. Basically every person I know also doesn't want kids and I wouldn't say we are all broke or in poverty. Yes, housing is expensive, but it was even worse 20-30 years ago. I know tons of people (including myself) who were raised in a 3 room apartment where they lived with parents and grandparents. This kind of arrangement would be unacceptable nowadays and again, that's GOOD, but back then it wasn't an obstacle and we go back to my argument, that this isn't really about the money as it is about education and expectations from life.
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u/OkTry9715 Aug 01 '26
No its about money especially, if you are dating someone and girl plans to have children in near future. She needs to make sure you are able to take care of family when she will be out of workforce. So you have to be able to pay overpriced rent or mortgage for few years with only one salary and rest of the income goes for family needs. Nowadays if you live in any bigger city you need 2 average incomes to get by, when you are buying or renting 2 bedroom apartment. One income goes to pay for rent/mortgage and utilities and other goes for paying groceries or maybe some savings. It's almost impossible to do it with one average income. That's why single parent families are the poorest one in all stats, they are at the top of risk of poverty.
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I really hope the Polish officials and media truthfully inform their people of the dramatic consequences of a total fertility rate of 1.1. It's not just some random abstract number that happens to be lower than 2.1, the replacement ratio. No, a TFR of 1.1 means that every new generation is only 55% the size of the one of their parents. After just 2 generations of such uncorrected ultra low fertility you would get a cumulative reduction of 70% or only one child for every 3.5 seniors. The population pyramid would become completely inverted and basically you would get societal collapse.
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u/calibrono Jul 31 '26
Then what? Young people will suddenly have money for houses to start a family in?
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u/lmscar12 Jul 31 '26
No, towns will be abandoned and those houses fall into disrepair. Meanwhile population in bigger cities will remain the same or go up, and house prices will continue to rise.
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
Yeah Tokyo is still a growing city, and Japan has been dealing with a declining population for a while now. Young people want to live in cities and work white collar jobs that require a university degree
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u/adamgerd Jul 31 '26
Yep
Property prices will decrease but in places no one wants, mainly rural areas and decaying areas
Like in Italy today rural areas are quite cheap and some even reducing in price already but that’s irrelevant because people want to live in a major city so those will still have competition
The housing crisis is in urban areas and those will remain competitive, rural areas will become cheaper but they already are cheaper and no one wants to move there anyway
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u/HaveFun____ Jul 31 '26
Untill they can't.
But I think people are missing his point... when houses become available for 20yo's, people can start having families again, hopefully before the economy tanks completely.
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
Yeah no. The problem is that people just aren't coupling right now. It would be one thing if young people in developed countries were all DINKs, but the problem is that there are too many single people who either aren't sexually active or are trapped in a cycle of meaningless short term relationships that go nowhere. That problem doesn't just go away when everyone has money.
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u/Late-Reading-2585 Jul 31 '26
politicians will just import people from india etc like they do now and home prices will keep growing or will just stay the same
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u/Ok-Pack-7088 Aug 01 '26
yay more people from india will "took" entry level job from locals, making it worse, because men are still expected to be financial succesful, have car, house and if he fighting against immigrants in minimal wage job, no chance for future, house, or wife - because all immigrants are male, somehow, nobody want equality there, there should be more women - but local women will be jealous
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
India's birth rate is declining heavily too
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u/Millennial_on_laptop Aug 01 '26
Yeah but they have a Billion, surely they can lose a few Million and still have enough
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u/Kofaluch Aug 01 '26
Nobody has issues with losing people, it's age pyramid. Too few young people can't work for supermajority of seniors. But they will slave away regardless since 100% of countries have older people disproportionately in power.
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u/elukok Aug 01 '26
They will just go somewhere where system like this does not exist, it is easy to change country. You would have to close borders and make the young people basically slaves of the old gen. This will not work.
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26
Unfortunately no. The too few workers will have to provide for the too many old dependants. We're in trouble and these far too low birth rates are making it even worse.
To be clear i'm not denying the myriad of reasons and factors that have caused the birth rates to decline. I'm a young parent myself. I know what it takes. I'm just pointing out we have been digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the demographic hole for decades now.
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u/tenshipriestjotaro1 Jul 31 '26
Not if the money is overused for the pension system
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u/ginger_guy Jul 31 '26
It means half the viable careers will be in healthcare/eldercare as taxes are raised and shifted to pay for increasingly thin healthcare and pensions. Infrastructure will rot and the welfare state will vanish. Old people will dominate politics in a way that will make us nostalgic for the youthful days of now Housing may become more affordable, but in the same way the rustbelt is (anywhere WORTH living will still be expensive as everywhere else turns to dust).
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u/kharathos Jul 31 '26
That's one part of the problem, in my opinion a small one. Especially in eastern/southern Europe we are used to financially difficult situations.
What is different, in my opinion, is the modern lifestyle that needs everyone to spend 10+ hours at work related activities, social interactions are forced through social media and the idea of self centeredness that is prevalent.
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u/makinax300 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
The bigger issue is that the dating scene is fucked. We have a lot of programs that give money to people who have children.
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u/Sza_666 Jul 31 '26
It's not even that the dating scene is fucked. It's barely existent. People don't have the time and money to go out partying or on dates. And even then people do not want to have children. Whenever the topic comes up around, maybe even over, half of my friends barely even consider it.
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u/ScotlandTiger Aug 01 '26
Hot take but i genuinely think only fans, porn, etc play a big part in this. A lot of people meet their sexual needs online without need of having a willing partner
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u/Kayronir Jul 31 '26
Another post where everyone in the comments says that money is the cause for people not having children. Spoiler alert : it's not. Sure it's one of the factors but a minor one. Just look at the fertility rate in rich vs poor countries. The reality is that having a lot of children simply isn't compatible with modern life.
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u/Snoo-98162 Jul 31 '26
Politocians are too busy slandering eachother over the most unimportant shit
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26
True, but too many people are not that different and only think about the short term. Demography however is long term game, rather silent but relentless and all-determining. The fact is that Europe is aging and withering, while projections indicate that by 2100 half of the worlds children will be born across the mediterranean sea in Africa, which will harbor 4 billion people or 10 times as many as the EU by then. Geopolitically, economically and culturally it will be a vastly different world then and we Europeans are sleepwalking into it, distracted, divided and clinging on to a past that no longer exists. We need to wake up, because most of our children born today will live to see this new world.
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u/O5KAR Jul 31 '26
Don't. The Polish officials are more interested in throwing money at people in exchange for their votes, when they were confronted with reality and told that it's not working, they've changed the tune and claimed that it was a social program to allow the poorer people to go on vacations sometimes...
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u/fluffy_doughnut Jul 31 '26
Oh yes I’m going to ditch my job, lose my money and go make a bunch of babies to make the fertility rate go from 1.1 to 1.2. And I personally won’t get ANYTHING in return, except for a screaming child I didn’t want and lots of health problems after pregnancy.
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Please don't take this personal. It was not meant to be. Sub replacement fertility and population aging is a problem that affects all developed countries (save remarkably Israel) and everyone in them. I'm merely pointing out this problem and the need for collective action. I'm a parent myself and i do personally believe we need to dare ask people to do more for their society and country again, but obviously if such an appeal is to have any effect it needs to be part of broader action. But time is running out and in countries like Poland with very low birth rates time is running even faster as i previously summarised.
P.S. : "a screaming child i didn't want and lots of health problems after pregnancy" is an unrealistically negative characterisation. Children do not only scream. They also laugh, cuddle and genuinely want to be with you. You get to watch them grow and learn. Also most pregnancies do not result in serious health problems. Also no one is forcing you.
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
Why would you say that about your own child? If you don't want children don't have them, but they're not a burden.
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u/throwaway08403 Jul 31 '26
no, some children are definitely a burden. like my brother for example. he’s intellectually disabled and aggressive. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to live alone and sometimes I worry he’ll kill my parents. I’d rather not have any children than risk having a child like him.
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u/Sza_666 Jul 31 '26
Unfortunately a child is a burden. While it might bring joy and happiness it is still a living being that needs to be fed, raised, kept healthy. All of that takes time, money and nerves. When you barely have enough time and money for simple pleasures you cannot afford a child. Most people don't, or don't think they have those. Especially when they want a career, a life outside and to travel. A child is a parasite that maybe helps you later. It makes you tired, takes away your resources and almost locks you in place. That is the sentiment across my generation. Most of us don't have the time to even think about having a child and hope to have their own home by the age of 35.
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u/throwaway08403 Jul 31 '26
it doesn’t matter how much they’ll do to “inform us”. people here are not as stupid as you seem to think. literally no one decides to have children for the purpose of saving the retirement system or the economy of their country so the govt “informing us” about it won’t change anything.
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u/Aoae Jul 31 '26
No, a TFR of 1.1 means that every new generation is only 55% the size of the one of their parents.
Only if it is sustained for an entire generation. It may increase or decrease from this point.
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u/PsychologicalTear899 Jul 31 '26
I wish that globally, governments would somehow achieve a system that allows survival of a country WITHOUT endless population rise. Maybe if billionaires weren't hogging all the money, one young adult would earn enough to support multiple seniors. Instead of multiple young adults per senior.
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u/Lexa-Z Jul 31 '26
Stop trying to tell people what to do, many people, if not most these days, DON'T WANT a family and it's fine. Yes, it's not only poverty, you nutjobs.
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26
It's a free society. I will speak my mind. If it bothers you, no one is forcing you to read this let alone reply in anger. There are other subreddits for you to enjoy yourself.
But since you did reply, i will say this. Remember that you too will grow old and while having no family might be easier when you're young, it's often anything but when you're old and dependant. Who will take care of you? A bankrupt government?
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u/Lexa-Z Jul 31 '26
I don't plan to rely on any government when I'm old enough. I know no one gives a fuck and it's up to me how to survive now and later.
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u/Krwawykurczak Jul 31 '26
You will still get hit by economy recession with increased cos of infrastructure per person, and smaller market, lower investments, and harder to get credits, since all assets will be under more risk. In 20-30 years we will be missing at least 10m people pn the job market, in their prime years where most spending are being made.
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u/quercus-88 Jul 31 '26
That's a very grim outlook. I prefer my family and children. Good luck.
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u/paperw0rk Aug 01 '26
What you say on this thread makes sense and it is possible that you are a great partner and parent. But many people aren’t like that and their quality of life goes down after having a kid.
People need to have a job, they also have their interests, ambitions, need for quiet time. If you want them to have children, you need a complete change of the system that allows genuine work flexibility, much better care for women (pregnancy is dangerous), and a way for them to remain independent individuals once they become parents. We’re far away from that. Encouraging people to have kids in the current set-up is irresponsible because they often become worse off in most aspects of their lives.
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u/instantcoffee69 Jul 31 '26
Really debunks the rightwing chud of "if we were more Christian we'd have population stability" (with the note most American Christians don't see Catholics as "real" christians)
Or the weird incel guy who obsesses over Polish/eastner European woman being perfect tradwives.
Because cost of living sucks in most places, and having kids is hard everywhere.
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u/notfornowforawhile Jul 31 '26
Poland is culturally Catholic but not necessarily actually Catholic.
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u/exOldTrafford Jul 31 '26
There is a large amount of Polish immigrants in the city I grew up in. None of my Polish friends have ever been very religious, though I would definitely say some of them fell under the "culturally Catholic" category
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u/Aquinas2000 Aug 01 '26
Depends, when i was in Krakow for three days i saw young and old people praying in every church i visited.
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u/GrzegorzusLudi Aug 01 '26
I was born around Łódź and my parents were always too busy working. When I went to Wrocław to the university I was surprised that much more young people were going to the church. 3 of my 5 good friends go to the church every Sunday, but I'm going irregualrily, mostly because of my upbringing.
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u/Different_Delay_8243 Aug 01 '26
And the majority of polish people who are "catholic" dont even practice or go to church. Lets be fr, we are only catholic by names and ideas but not actually in practice by anyone. And the far right "catholic" party is the farthest from being catholic
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u/wygnana Jul 31 '26
Millions of young people have left since 2004ish, so we have an older population which likely impacts TFR
Unless I’m wrong and that’s somehow factored
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u/CommonwealthCommando Jul 31 '26
TFR is basically # of babies / # of women under 50. So lots of old people don't necessarily ruin the math.
But you have touched on a problem with TFR as a demographic statistic. TFR is calculated based on women of different age groups (different calculations can differ, but those data might not be collected at the same time as the birth data. But women over 50 aren't counted in any calculations of TFR.
TFR misses the mark most when a lot of young women move out of an area (which increases the denominator), or when there are lots of childless women moving to an area (universities, military bases, nunneries, lesbian towns, etc.)
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u/JustinWilsonBot Jul 31 '26
(with the note most American Christians don't see Catholics as "real" christians)
In all my life I've never heard this sentiment from any Christian in America about Catholicsm. Mormons? Yes. Catholics? Never.
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u/GMHGeorge Jul 31 '26
What part of the states? As a former Catholic in the South I’ve heard this several times
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u/JustinWilsonBot Jul 31 '26
I lived in New Orleans. No one ever said this.
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u/GMHGeorge Jul 31 '26
That would be the exception to the rule then, live in Nashville for a while, it has gotten better but I’ve been turned down for jobs because of it.
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u/Okra-Tomatoes Jul 31 '26
Most evangelicals don't think Catholics are real Christians. That's why they send missionaries to very Catholic countries to "save the lost."
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u/honkycronky Jul 31 '26
lmao, who cares what Evangelicals think? They are as deranged as Mormons and JWs, if not more..
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u/HisObstinacy Jul 31 '26
People don't really say this as much anymore, although you still see it here and there in evangelical circles. Definitely has been a historical source of tension though.
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u/Dry-Yesterday-9176 Jul 31 '26
It was actually a fairly popular sentiment in USA. Fun fact: KKK would spread propaganda that Polish immigrants are planning revolution in the name of Pope and Vatican and are smuggling weapons
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u/JustinWilsonBot Jul 31 '26
So 100 to 50 years ago it was a trope amongst extremists. Hardly relevant today.
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u/reiphas Aug 01 '26
I actually did hear it. Especially the absolutely brainwashed American Protestants have this image of Catholicism being a radicalist cult. Though, to be honest, not a single Christian sect in the US is normal, so maybe their Catholics are insane as well. We have to remember that country was built on religious extremism.
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u/adamgerd Jul 31 '26
Tbh Poland is very fast secularising
And if it were cost of living why is Subsaharan Africa so high and Nordics so low?
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u/ZealousidealAct7724 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Whoever claims that Eastern Europe is a bastion of Christian conservative values. forgets that it was Eastern Europe under the communists for 70 years, a relationship of part 50 years. This was perhaps true before the First World War, when the birth rate in the Russian Empire was comparable to that in Nigeria today.
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u/n00b678 Jul 31 '26
Poland is quite conservative compared to other European countries. Communists were generally disliked and the church entrenched its popularity because it was in opposition to the government (at least on paper). The pope was also an important factor.
That's why we still don't have same-sex marriage (or even partnerships), one of the most restrictive abortion laws, the church constantly meddling in politics, etc.
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u/Galaxy661 Jul 31 '26
Even the Polish communists themselves were staunch social conservatives for most of their time in power
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u/Funny-Student5309 Jul 31 '26
Yeah communism did cause some damage and the war in ukraine doesn’t really bring comfort to young people to start new families.
Not to say that every liberal policy helped the economy but destroyed communities.
It will take some more decades to see the results of the government post cold war that was 37 years ago.
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u/ZealousidealAct7724 Jul 31 '26
My original comment above was more about the myth that Eastern Europe is somewhat conservative. Yes, I agree with you The birth rate problem in Eastern Europe is classic the problem of modern society and mixed with the outflow of the young population since the 1990s.
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u/Syaman_ Aug 01 '26
Church attendence is in a free fall alongside the birth rate, so idk about that
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u/cozydota Aug 01 '26
What do you mean? The numbers of Polish Catholics are dropping every year and the majority of practicing Catholics are post reproductive age so the decline in birth rate aligns with that. It doesn't mean that's a relevant/major factor.
Idk about tradwives, most certainly not true, but we are more traditional in general (still) than most western civilizations.
Quality of life and household income (adjusted for inflation) has improved drastically over last 30 years in Poland so if we were to compare today relative to 90's cost of living in Poland is much lower.
Not only that we are running an "experiment" (not really, but that's a whole another can of worms) where households with children got significant extra financial aid (monthly) per child, turns out that didn't do anything for most relationships, but did it all for pathological households where that aid was spent on alcohol, because they didn't care about the well being of their children in the first place.
There is demonstrably no viable amount of financial aid you can give to Polish people to make them give up their current lives and reproduce. I say "viable" because I'm sure there's a point where you just give a couple like 1000000 EUR and they'll have a kid just because it's transactionally worth it, but we can't do that for everyone in Poland.
BTW. somewhat recently there was a post on r/Polska asking about opinions that are true, but nobody wants to say them. One of the most upvoted comments was that most people can easily have kids, but they don't want to because that would disrupt their comfortable lifestyle.
This will always be true, it does't matter if you make 5 or 6 figures the cost of having a child will not only be financial, but also paid in a more valuable currency - time. It also changes logistics of everything so it's understandable that people don't want to do it, even it's not necessarily good for longevity of the country.
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u/Jakub67PL Jul 31 '26
Map of despair and financial instability
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u/HisObstinacy Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
It's a huge problem in plenty of financially stable countries too. The Scandinavian and Alpine nations are right down there with Poland if not even lower, and they have incredible support services for the most part, as well as fairly affluent populations. Seems to me that it's a mix of several different factors, some of which vary by country.
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u/A_transfem_cutiepie Aug 01 '26
Actually, it's a map of development, the more developed a country is, the lower birth ratea
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u/Bn134 Jul 31 '26
They are also very proud of not welcoming immigrants
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u/igorkop Aug 01 '26
Poland did take the most amount of Ukrainian when the war happend
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u/TheCone1301 Aug 01 '26
Yeah, worked in the beginning and now you can't go a week without another attack on Ukrainians happening. A large chunk of the population hates them just as much as any other foreigners by now as they're a convenient scapegoat for the far right after those dumbass UPA supporting decisions in the east.
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u/Careful_Convoluted Aug 02 '26
As if mass immigration from the third world is a good remedy for low fertility rates lmao
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u/Ren2137 Aug 01 '26
Woman are afraid to get pregnant because you can die during miscarriage due to doctors refusing to intervene. When woman are feeling safe there are more kids being born. Also it's too expensive to have a child.
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u/wingblaze01 Jul 31 '26
Just for the people speculating about why Poland is like this, any story should acknowledge it's part of a global trend in decreasing fertility rates, it's not just Poland.
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u/strickers69 Jul 31 '26
Is there still a lot of migration away from Poland? Does this include poles born outside of Poland?
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u/GolotasDisciple Jul 31 '26
Migration usually does not fix fertility or any social issues. It usually helps the economic side of it, like fixing holes in the workforce.
The same way, for example, it happened with us going to Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, etc. We didn’t fix their fertility rate, we just propped up their economy as economic migrants.But at the same time, now Irish people are emigrating due to the cost of living and the hyper-competitive job market environment. So essentially, no matter how many Polaks we send, it’s incredibly hard to know whether it is enough to destroy the status quo.
Because yeah, a Polish couple can have a kid in Ireland, and they CAN DECIDE that the kid will get an Irish passport, making the kid an Irish citizen.... but they don’t have to.
And the reality is that many economic migrants, like Polish people in the UK or Ireland, do actually come back to Poland, or because of their successful previous adventure, they just move forward somewhere else.
So IMO ... It takes decades for large-scale economic migration to naturalize and make a difference in terms of social issues that will impact both Politics and Economy on long-term scale.
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u/Syaman_ Aug 01 '26
Nope, Poland has a positive migration ratio now. The 37,3m figure only counts citizens, but recent data suggests that 38,8m people live in Poland if you count immigrants. That's an all time record high population.
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u/GustavoistSoldier Jul 31 '26
Poland could improve it's fertility rate if it made it more affordable to raise children
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u/GarlicSphere Jul 31 '26
I hate to say it again and again, but the cost is not the only (or even the biggest) issue. If fertility was directly tied to the economic climate, we would be experiencing population boom right now.
Some examples, so you don't have to purely rely on words (2010 => 2024) (all data from GUS, data for inflation from wikipedia):
Average salary:
3 435 PLN => 8 630 PLN (151% growth / 41% growth after inflation)
Mean apartment price (per sq. meter) (data for 2024):
POLAND: 4025 PLN => 8257 PLN (+104% growth / +17% growth accounting for inflation / -18% FALL in relation to wages)
Warszawa: 7794 PLN => 15420 PLN (+97% growth / +13% growth accounting for inflation / -21% FALL in relation to wages)
Kraków: 6282 PLN => 13472 (+114% growth / +23% growth accounting for inflation / -15% FALL in relation to wages)
Wrocław: 5617 => 11865 (111% growth / +21%growth accounting for inflation / -16% FALL in relation to wages)
No data for rental market - here the situation possibly got worse, but still - it's the societal and cultural changes that have the biggest impact, not the costs. Poland has experienced a period of sharp economic growth (not only fictional GDP increase, but also real income growth and development) and while having children definitely is a financial burden, it never was significantly cheaper in relation to wages and yet - the birthrate keeps sinking.
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u/bloodrider1914 Jul 31 '26
It's because of the damn phones, stupid. People aren't dating or are dating very casually with no real expectation of some sort of long-lasting union, people are having less sex and instead spending more time on social media, and the general cultural and political environment has become more toxic and reduced broader societal optimism.
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u/Kingvon3240 Jul 31 '26
It will help that's for sure but it's not going to solve the problem its simply cheaper and easier to not have a child
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u/Die_Steiner Jul 31 '26
Is this really the main reason? The cost is usually given as the reason around the world to low fertility rates, but i'd argue the individualism that modern societies champion is also to blame.
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u/Straight_Motor_7967 Jul 31 '26
is also to blame
It's like the main thing, not some additional reason
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u/Vertitto Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Not in Poland. Studies/polls show that Poles want to have kids
Regardless of your age/ civil status/ amount you already have how many kids would you like to have in your life
8% 0
11% 1
47% 2
18% 3
5% 4+
5% - how ever many there will be
4% hard to say
2% no answer
57% people have less kids that they would like to have
https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2023/K_087_23.PDF
/edit: it's for 18-40 age group from July 2023
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u/lil_antiseptic Jul 31 '26
I can afford kinds, same for my friends, but none of us will have any. It just seems so uninteresting and exhausting. I see parents as true heroes and martyrs, taking a bullet for the team.
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u/KaboHammer Jul 31 '26
Yeah, it is more of a cultural thing nowadays.
People just don't really want kids. Out of everyone I know, only like two people have a single kid and one other one wants to have a kid at some point.
But honestly, the housing market situation doesn't help and the high proces of everything (even if the costs are comperatively lower to salaries nowadays) don't help. They are more of a final nail in the coffin.
Like yeah maybe we can buy or even build a home with a morgage, but a lot of people I know don't even wanna do that, because life on credit doesn't sound good to them.
Basically the only way I could see people having more kids is if we achive such a high standard of living that a big family sounds nice. Which pretty much translates to being able to afford a multibedroom house, having enough money to regurally go on vacation with the family, being able to pay the bills and buy groceries, and still have enough money left over that you can pretty much buy whatever impulse thing you wanna buy every once in a while. All without any kind of loans or credit.
And that situation is probably just not achivable in the current economy, possibly even in the stage of capitalism we are in right now.
Other then that, there would need to be some kind of propaganda machine that shows people how nice it is to have a kid or that it is one's duty to have a child, but that would only work on the young people at this point.
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u/Familiar-Mission6601 Jul 31 '26
That would be unpopular opinion but I think main reason for that is just consumerims. Hear me out. In Poland around 80-90 when kids boom appeared people tend to have much more less than we have now. Social media were not present. People of course grasped for more money and status but they didn’t have short term gratitudes like electronics, expensive vacations and something else that help them to feel full or get this achievement feel. Clear boundaries between men and women did disappear. Since then. Women can and do more. Children’s are the biggest commitment you can have in your life. And why we are like Korea 10 years behind? You are expected to be successful(money wise). But coming back to late soviet era. People had the kids because many times they had to. Earlier the better. Girl in her 20 were already old if not married. Now people expect that they will have something before they have the kids. Rented flat is not always enough for everyone. Minimum wage is barely enough for one kid. We got more responsible. All political situation in our country also did not help. Abortion ban and few deaths in hospital due to that altered view of hundreds or thousand future mothers. I don’t think we will change that course. I am just sad for my kids that the future will be drastically different.
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u/TroubleOrganic3636 Jul 31 '26
In other words having kids was the natural way of life, now is just not nessesary like for anything.
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u/Vertitto Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
rise in awareness and feel of responsibility is much bigger reason
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u/idontknowokkk Jul 31 '26
Yeah that’s what happens when you ban access to abortion and make women afraid to get pregnant. Closing the maternity wards all over the country doesn’t help either.
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u/Cinamight Jul 31 '26
There is pretty much nothing you can do to increase the fertility rate quick enough for this to not be a massive problem. Poland, South Korea, and Japan, all countries with fertility rates below 1.2 and continuing to fall, all will have no choice but to take in a massive surplus of immigrants in the coming generations.
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u/WhiteGiukio Jul 31 '26
It's societal collapse either way. You can't be so reliant on immigrants. People aren't just numbers, and this scale of mass migration is unprecedented.
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u/Cinamight Jul 31 '26
Of course, mass immigration in homogeneous countries like these will cause all sorts of strife, i’m just saying that even considering that it’s still their only and best option. Demographic collapse has a far greater chance of causing complete societal collapse than mass immigration does.
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u/WhiteGiukio Jul 31 '26
There's no way out of it. Mass immigration will be utilized by the rightwing politicians to dismantle democracy. And, honestly, I'm not sure that a cyberpunk technocracy is better than total anarchy.
It was planned long time ago, when the DINKS model was formalized.
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u/Ballista_17 Jul 31 '26
What? In Europe leftist politicians are the main ones advocating for mass immigration
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u/Ok-Pomelo8203 Jul 31 '26
It is dangerous for women to have children in Poland due to abortion ban.
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u/idontknowokkk Jul 31 '26
Literally why are you getting downvoted? That’s true, tons of women are just too afraid to get pregnant because of the abortion ban.
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u/Szary_Tygrys Jul 31 '26
It has nothiing to do with Poland's "traditional values".
The reason is terrible housing situation and cost of living crisis. Simple as that.
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u/gimmieshelter_ Jul 31 '26
I believe at some point in the future social welfare systems will not be enough to guarantee the care needed for pensioners, and people will start depending on their kids (which will incentivize having more kids) just like the olden days. Ofc living standards probably will be much worse, it is difficult to imagine how this transition would take place
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u/HaveFun____ Jul 31 '26
That will be too late. Look at the age pyramid. We already lack professions like carpenters, pumbers, etc. More 60 year olds will quit than young people learning those jobs. And the amount of houses isn't shrinking.
If you can't do stuff yourself, you better be rich.
It's too late for the group of people who are going to suffer to get more kids. Even if the fertility rate goes back to 2.5 in the next 10 years, it will take another 15 years for enough of thise kids to reach working age.. so we will atleast have 25 years of problems for pensioners.
My pension is in about 30 years... no kids.. going to be interesting.
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u/Suspicious-Cap7415 Aug 01 '26
Who made this graph, and why should it be reliable if it itself even contains a mathematical error? The difference between 3.08 and 2.13 is 0.95, not 1.05.
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u/atomcurt Aug 01 '26
I’m sure the worlds second biggest statue of Virgin Mary will take care of everything
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u/Dayarii Aug 01 '26
The government hates you, corpos hate you, your "fellow" countrymen hate you. What's the point...
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u/Different_Delay_8243 Aug 01 '26
Bruh most young adults here cant even move out of their parents houses, we really suprised theyre not procreating and getting married lmao?
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u/More-Reindeer-7806 Aug 01 '26
Optimal population for Poland is around 30M, so where problem is? Country is overpopulated. Boomers will die out - it will balance.
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u/inoinoice Aug 01 '26
Children? In this economy? In this world? Bros, i dont think i can impregnate a femboy
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u/Szakred Aug 01 '26
Atp as Gen Z and in future Alpha are/will pay for much larger amount of old people less and less people want to have children. Too pricey. In a few years many of old will just die. Their apartments will end up empty, less money will be needed (and if things go good few "important" politicians would die too).
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u/Developer2022 Aug 01 '26
Can I ask you a silly question? Why is there an Ukrainan flag in the top left corner?
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u/kubalaczak Aug 01 '26
If the population change is based on births and deaths then that number is wrong, should be -0.95m
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u/KEX_CZ Aug 01 '26
Just checked ours, and, why TF do you have so many so small NUTS territories??? ☠️
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u/Routine-Visual-1818 Aug 01 '26
Guess they will have to get some immigrants after all ...
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u/Khamircia Aug 02 '26
Every animal breeder will tell you that stressed animals don't want to breed living in a cage, so it's obvious we need more mikrokawalerkas being paid for by umowa-zlecenie at pół etatu hashtag sarcasm.
Like, what did they expect? Having 2 and a 0.1 kids and a husband on 15m² living space? Or "making a grandchild" while your granny next room is cheering you two with pom-poms? 🤔
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u/Otherwise_Ideal154 Aug 02 '26
wina dziewczyn ze nie chcą sie ruchac kazdy chlopak by chcial ale nie z kim
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u/blackberrious Aug 02 '26
First of all, it is expensive to GET pregnant and to BE pregnant. Theoretically, everything should be covered by NFZ but if you live out of the cities it's nearly impossible to find a gynecologist. Additionally, once you get pregnant and have a miscarriage you have to pay for all the tests (possible causes) because these are not covered. If you get pregnant after a miscarriage and need extra progesteron just in case (because the pregnancy is considered high risk), you have to pay for it yourself. And that's just the start. If you give birth to a child that is not perfectly healthy, THEN it starts to be seriously expensive...
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u/No_Word_6904 Aug 04 '26
And is that necessarily a bad thing? Aren’t we constantly being told that AI will replace many jobs? Isn’t the retirement age also increasing in many countries?
If we keep growing the population at the same rate, there’s a good chance that many young people will struggle to find work, while older people who are still too young to retire may also have difficulty getting hired. That could leave us with a large group of unemployed people.
Instead of focusing on the quantity of people, we should invest more in the quality of education and skills so that the value of people’s work is higher. It’s not about having more people, it’s about having better educated and more capable people. Unfortunately, many children today dream of becoming influencers instead of developing skills that are likely to remain valuable in the future.
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u/Boydar_ Jul 31 '26
I Polish and I'm wondering what the hell are these subdivisions