“Baby doom”: Poland records one of EU’s lowest fertility rates

The average number of children born per woman in Poland has dropped to 1.44, one of the lowest fertility rates in the European Union, according to the latest figures from Eurostat.

Despite the Polish government’s efforts to boost births in recent years, the country has faced a growing demographic shortfall, now exacerbated by a rising death toll and further declines in births during the pandemic.

According to the new data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, Poland’s fertility rate in 2019 was lower than the EU average of 1.53 and significantly below the so-called replacement level of 2.1 at which enough babies are born to sustain population levels.

The countries with the highest fertility rates in the EU were France (1.86 live births per woman) and Romania (1.77), while the lowest were in Malta (1.14) and Spain (1.23).

Poland’s figure of 1.44 in 2019 represented a decline from 1.46 the previous year and 1.48 in 2017.  These are not, however, the lowest levels ever recorded. At the turn of the century, the Polish birth rate fell to 1.37 in 2000 and 1.31 in 2001.

The birth rate in 2020 is also likely to again have seen a drop, after Poland recorded its lowest number of births in 17 years. Last month, economist Łukasz Kozłowski noted that the country is suffering a “baby doom”, after figures for January 2021 showed 25,000 births, a quarter fewer than in the same period a year earlier.

In response, the Polish government has taken steps to encourage people to have more children. This has included its flagship child-benefit programme, known as “500+”, which provides monthly payments to parents for each of their children. Last year, however, the government admitted that the scheme had not boosted births.

Another significant trend in Poland has been that women are choosing to give birth later in life than before. According to Eurostat, 28 was the average age of women having their first child in Poland in 2019, which was below the EU average of 29.4 years but higher than in countries such as Bulgaria and Romania (26).

By 2019, the median age at which women give birth in Poland had increased by between six and eight years since the early 1990s, according to a recent report by Poland’s official statistics body (GUS).

Meanwhile Poland last year recorded the highest rate of excess deaths among all EU member states, as it was it hit hard by the pandemic. Roughly a fifth more people died than the recent annual average, shrinking the population by 115,000 in 2020.

Poland recently launched its latest national census, which will bring greater clarity to the country’s demographic situation following not only falling births and rising deaths, but also significant levels of both immigration and emigration.

Main image credit: Bicanski/Pixinio (under public domain)

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