Poland's population growth problem

Are the government's incentives to procreate working?

Poland never had a population problem. It was all a bit of scaremongering to keep the ponzi scheme going.

very true

wow. please explain.

The population was never in decline. Some people left due to economic issues, the birth rate was still higher than the death rate.

With regards to the Ponzi scheme, it's like all social welfare/pension schemes, you need more replacement workers for the system to continue to function. Thus, scaremongering about population during a time when classroom sizes are larger than ever, and the infrastructure is being pushed to the max.

very interesting thanks. Is anybody familiar with the specific incentives?

1000zl for every sex trophy plus 20 weeks of maternity leave.

20 weeks! Sounds like the PRL-days.

They had a fixed budget of money, which ran out very quickly, and maternity leave in PL is already good.

This is "wrong". Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Estonia are among the worst hit with a very serious population problem.

Some references:


Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline (and those for whom emigration was a major reason, that reason is written. For Poland it is not the only reason).


Source: boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/07/16/population _decline/


Source: demographic-research.org/volumes/vol17/11/ (although it says of a 50% probability for the particular number as percentages. It is certain that there will be a decline, however the uncertainty is only in the percentage and nothing else).


Source: upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2010/04/01/Poland-concerned-about-population-decline/UPI-24881270141918/#ixzz1DYJF8bKM


Personally I would like to agree with you and say that "we are OK!". But then, I fear that would be worse for us as ignoring the ground realities is never a good option. However, if you wish to refute, I will not press my case. Its not a happy case anyways, and more than you I would like it all to have been false. But alas, its not the case.

I had a professor in the University of Lodz, who have considerable experience in this field. According to him the statistics shown are not true in the sense that the population decline is much more severe. This statistics is not accurate, and very conservative. The real scenario is worse. The more compelling part is that it is not supposed to carry on with the present trend. As per the increasing westernization (or rather a concept of westernization, which is not always true westernization even) of the society, the birthrate is supposed to fall sharper, even with the government incentives in place. This will cause in a growing number of old aged citizens, costing the government, unless we have other plans. The success of the incentive scheme is not creating magic, but perhaps helping to some extent - which is not enough. There are other factors to this trend which are not entirely economical, but other environmental (external and internal) factors contribute to it greatly.

By the way, by 2050, other than the populations of western Europe (which is stable due to immigration into it), the truly increasing ethnic European population will be that of Albania only. It is estimated that by 2050 they will rise as not only growing, but by that time their growth momentum will increase 10 folds.

Thanks ... I wish things would change by the time 2050 is around for Poland. But ... for the time being, we are yet to find that magic formula.

The Polish population has been growing for the last 5 years. In fact, there were only four years where it was in decline...and the total decline for those four years was less than the increase in 2008. Again, the truth is that classroom sizes are increasing, it's incredibly difficult to find a parking space, trams and buses are stuffed full, doctors are seeing more patients, and apartments are all rented out. None of those would be the case with a falling population. Even if the GUS statistics are lies (why?), the eyes are difficult to deceive.

In my personal opinion, it would be nice to see the population drop to 1960's levels. 25% less people would be a good thing as long as Poland manages to control immigration. Wouldn't it be nice to run the factories, and not work in them? Concentrating wealth in fewer hands works wonders.

Before Poland dumped communism in 1989, it was generally expected that the country would top the 40 million mark by the year 2000. For whatever reasons, that never happened.

Poland needs more feking.Fek because we get lost.


You can be happy as a multi culti.

Ooh,maybe a teeny bout of Bubonic plague...freed our serfs in the middle ages and brought about all sorts of social reforms ;)

I had no idea Poland had the same problem as Ukraine and Russia do. I was hoping that at least one slavic country is at least reproducing OK (being Catholic/anti-contraception/anti-abortion, and all that... ).

Bummer :(

In the PRL period, maternity leave was shorter. besides, at that time the government did not pay social security contributions for women on child raising leave unlike nowadays. These incentives, however, dont suffice to persuade people to enlarge their families.

The problem is very big in my opinion.
Like someone said already the birthrate of white people in the majority of Europe is becoming slower.
The worst hit is eastern/central Europe.

I will only show a few examples:

Polands population will drop from ~38,000,000 to ~33,000,000 by 2050.
Russias population will go from ~140,000,000 to ~105,000,000
Ukraines population ~46 million to ~30 million.
photius.com/rankings/world2050_rank.html

These differences are huge!

People leaving to other countries is one problem. I am in Canada
and the population of Polonia in Canada/USA is 10,000,000.
The other problem is the low birthrate in Poland like I mentioned above.

Countries like Britain and France are sustaining population because of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from outside Europe.

We need to start having more babies. This can result in the Polish and slavic population having more influence in Europe.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6929516.stm

The best incentive:

Another irony of Communist rule in Eastern Europe was that the crushing of popular resistance under the tank tracks often ended in the maternity ward. In Hungary after the failed 1956 revolution, in Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring in 1968 and in Poland after martial law in 1981, the birth rate rose spectacularly. It was as if the youth, frustrated in their desire for greater political freedom, took consolation in their desire for one another.

I have to remind here the old anarchist slogan in Greece ''fek because we get lost.''

I know cities like Krakow and Lodz have decreasing populations. So, which cities have a GROWING population?

From big cities none except Warsaw. But city stats will not tell you much. You should look rather at agglomeration stats or urban areas. Big Polish cities unfortunately are in the process of urban sprawl. So for example city of Poznan is losing citizens but agglomeration is growing, the same more or less goes for Krakow, Wroclaw and others:

here you can find nice stats, I'm not sure how valid they are though...:

markamiasto.home.pl/autoinstalator/joomla7/index.php?option=com_plotalot&view=simple&Itemid=572

£ódź is a different case - it is kind of Polish Detroit + it is to close to Warsaw...

This is what Poland should do.

1. Fix their roads.

2. Increase their varaiety of international products.

3. Open hundreds of new jobs

finally open our borders to Poor asian, african and south american nations, give the immi's a home/flat/apartment, some money make them learn polish and they should find a job.

the population of poland should increase slowly and positivley and we can finally get the heck out of the 38 million population mark and hit 39-40 million!

The Central Statistical Office (GUS) has counted the Polish population again and concluded that there are over one million fewer people in the country than had so far been reported, according to Rzeczpospolita. It turns out that out of the 38.3 million people officially registered as residents in Poland, 1.1 million have in fact emigrated.

Taking this into consideration, Poland's population comes down to 37.2 million, representing the biggest decline in population the country has seen since the Second World War.

wbj.pl/article-57428-polish-population-shrinking.html

I've already talked about it in a lot of different topics, but well...

One important thing that people didn't mention in this topic is fertility rate. A fertility rate below 2.11 points equals a decline in population no matter what you say. It doesn't really matter if our population slightly increases 4 years in a row, and you'll see why.

youtube.com/watch?v=weWgnOimfnA -> this video shows what will happen if everything goes as it is at the moment

tfw.cachefly.net/snm/images/nm/pyramids/ja-2010.png -> this graph shows Japan's age structure - soon our will look similar

And now look at Poland's population (20-year period):

year 1990
year 1995
year 2000
year 2005
year 2010
And this is how our population may look like in 40 years.

In just 20 years from the youngest population in Europe (or one of the youngest) we're turning into an old population like Japan/Sweden. The quality of life has improved, so we're gonna have more and more people aged 70+. And people aged 70+ aren't productive and die massively. And if that's how it looks now, imagine the next 20 years. How on earth this short number of workers is going to earn money for themselves as well as pay enough to the social system to provide older people with pensions? Aside from the incoming crisis - this is a huge problem.

In my opinion - the best way to increase birth rate is getting the government OUT of our personal lives. Taxes and expense reduction as well as controlled destruction of our social system. This will make people think: "If I'm old there will be no pension. So I'm gonna need children who will help me when I'm older".


Are you being serious? GIVE them flats? Good luck with that socialist agenda. It will lead to the same situation as in France/UK/Germany. Well... I suppose letting them take over our country is one way to do things :)

Large scale social housing, would be an obvious solution to the problem. Capitalism in Poland is forcing people into birdcage homes that leave absolutely no room for children,toilets and showers squashed into kitchens, 2 generation in one 50 M apartment. Poland maybe catholic but its not pro-family. Pro profit for sure.

are you sure about that ?

No Mark, that's how you live.

The rest of us live just fine. Perhaps your toilet and shower is in your kitchen, but it's certainly not in mine.

not true.
I know more than a few people living 3ppl/50m square. Good friends of mine live 4 ppl/60m square and they make well above the national average. Their flat is paid off and buying a new one is just too risky an investment at the moment. Another close friend lives 5ppl/65 m square with both he and his wife earning above the national average.

3/50m2 is hardly out of the ordinary in big cities in Europe. Look at Stockholm - commie blocks everywhere, and respectable too.

Buying a new flat isn't much of a risk at the moment if you treat it as a long term thing - I bought a flat recently too, and I couldn't give a monkeys if the price goes up or down - it's to live in, not to speculate on. At the end of the day, you can sit there waiting for things to "stabilise", but you'd be holding on forever in a smaller place. Pointless.

5/65m2 - if they're both earning above national average, then there must be a different reason why they're there.

It's a lifestyle choice in many cases - especially the middle-aged generation nowadays are quite happy to live in a mortgage-free flat, even though they could easily sell and take a 10 year mortgage which would more than pay for them to upgrade. But in Poland, if you're already in a 65m2 flat, there's not much more to upgrade to - apart from a house with the inevitable dreadful public transport connections.

I deliberately bought a flat with good connections. Sure, I could've probably actually bought a (small) house for not much more money - but I can go to the pub and get home whenever. Buy a house, and I'd be relying on taxis/lifts forevermore. So - conscious decision as a young person - buy a smaller place with more opportunities, than be stuck in suburban hell.

Never could understand those people who buy huge houses in Poland, but who then spend 90 minutes a day stuck in traffic each way.

Some people eventually want to multiply.