Births fall to 17-year low in Poland as demographic decline accelerated by pandemic

Poland’s population shrank by 115,000 in 2020, according to newly released data by the government’s statistical agency. The number of births dropped to a 17-year low, while more people died than in any year since the end of the Second World War.

Contrary to the government’s hopes, its flagship child benefit programme has not boosted the number of births – as it admitted last year – and experts note that the pandemic has exacerbated Poland’s pre-existing demographic problems.

According to data for 2020 from Statistics Poland (GUS), a government agency, 38,268,000 people lived in Poland at the end of last year, a drop of 115,000 compared to 12 months earlier. It continues a longer-term decline since Poland reached its highest ever population of 38,529,900 in 2010.

In 2020, 355,000 children were born in Poland, which was around 20,000 fewer than the previous year and marks the lowest annual number of births since 2003. Poland’s current fertility rate stands at 1.42, which remains well below the replacement rate of 2.1 to sustain population levels.

At the same time, death numbers soared amid the pandemic, within 477,000 people dying in 2020, around 20% more than in recent years and the highest figure in any year since the Second World War.

The fourth quarter – when coronavirus infections rose rapidly and hospitals struggled to cope – saw around 60% more deaths than in the same period a a year earlier.

Experts predict that the pandemic will have an even deeper, longer-lasting effect on Poland’s demographics, with current data being just the tip of the iceberg.

“The lower number of births is most substantial in the last quarter of last year,” notes Piotr Szukalski, a demographer at the University of Łódź, quoted by Rzeczpospolita.

This may indicate that, amid the uncertainties of the pandemic and the strain on health services, Poles have decided to put off having children, he says. A similar tendency may be observed in 2021, believes Szukalski.

Poland has long suffered a low birth rate. In 2016 the government introduced its flagship “500+” programme – granting a monthly payment of 500 zloty (€110) to families for each child from their second onward, later expanded to all children – in an effort to boost the birth rate. However, following a brief spike in births, they have subsequently declined again.

“PiS wanted to help demographics this way, but it turned out to be a typical poverty reduction scheme,” said Rafał Chwedoruk, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, told Rzeczpospolita.

He adds that, with the economic challenges brought about by the pandemic, some may start to argue that support for businesses and workers is now more important than helping parents.

GUS reports that the numbers of marriages has declined as well, with the organisation of weddings restricted for much of last year due to the pandemic. Around 145,000 couples tied the knot in 2020, a drop of 38,000 compared to the previous year, notes Wprost.

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Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna