Ireland and Poland are both Catholic countries mostly. Poland is probably more catholic overall. Catholicism is well-known for encouraging procreation. However, Poland has a much lower fertility rate than Ireland. The total expected fertility rate for 2015 (ie number of children expected to be born per woman in her child bearing years) is 1.4 and 2 respectively.
There is an even bigger difference if you look at historic data. Any idea why Ireland makes so many more babies than Poland? Is it because polish women are more likely to ignore what the church tells them, or because Irish gals are more virile? Or because a better economic situation in Ireland means people can more easily afford the bills?
I Don't think that this have anything to do with religion. All Abrahamic religions estimulate procriation.
Still, you have Catholic countries with very high fertility (Angola, Timor) and with low (Poland) fertility. Muslim countries with extremelly high (Somalia, Chad, most of Subsaharian Africa, etc) and with low fertility (Iran, Albania) And there it goes.
By the examples i gave above is easy to realize what actually makes fertility be so high: Uneducation, not poverty.
Because even poor countries (Balkans, Iran, Ukraine, Thailand) have very low fertility rate since they have relatively good basic education.
In the area I live, in the Podkarpacie region, my wife says that she can see why the birth rate is so low, the village is full of men in their 30,s and 40,s in fact all ages really, who have never married and never will and similar amounts of girls/women........much higher amount of people here who seem to get on with life on their own. We are always meeting new 'older' people who have never married. They have their family system to keep them, they live with older parents/sisters brothers, so they don,t need a new 'unknown element' to do the cooking/washing, making peirogi.....moaning at them for drinking alcohol. They have it all at home and seem happy to get on with uncomplicated lives.
"so they don,t need a new 'unknown element' to do the cooking/washing, making peirogi.....moaning at them for drinking alcohol. They have it all at home and seem happy to get on with uncomplicated lives."
That is sad by every single point of view.
Such beautiful genes getting lost from the gene pool....
Such beautiful genes getting lost from the gene pool....
Genes are genes, none are more 'beautiful' or 'ugly' than any other.
We are always meeting new 'older' people who have never married.
Same in Warsaw, very common. Also people who never actually leave home, just have their own room, usually but not always a career and that's it.
Lack of access to normal in-vitro fertility treatment has its effect, plus the small size of apartments not being conducive to large families. And of course the cost of raising kids and the lack of state support for poorer people to have families.
By the examples i gave above is easy to realize what actually makes fertility be so high: Uneducation, not poverty.
I think this is right. Academic studies have shown that the most effective way to reduce family size is to educate girls and give women opportunities in the workplace. Poland has been good at this, which is why it has one of the lowest numbers of children per woman in Europe, especially among those who've grown up in the post-Communist era.
There is also evidence that smaller families mean higher survival rates, less poverty and longer lives for the next generation. The fewer children we have, the more we can invest time, effort and money into helping them prosper.
@English: matter is not to have 6, 8, 10 kids but at least to have a birthrate that prevents population decline (the case in Poland). The reason why Polish women don't have many kids is related to poverty (low salaries, small apartments, no help from State). The lack of State's nursery schools doesn't enable women to have kids and a carreer at same time. Not everybody has babcia around or money to pay for a niania.
Polish population's decline ought to be a concern among politicians...
Any idea why Ireland makes so many more babies than Poland? Is it because polish women are more likely to ignore what the church tells them, or because Irish gals are more virile?
no it because there is more money in Ireland, obviously.
Which they often address with ineffective solutions intended to win them votes instead of dealing with the core issue.
Being a parent with a young child in Poland I believe the single biggest problem is the lack of nurseries (which varies from area to area) and lack of support for parents that need nurseries (financial and otherwise).
Also, many parents with "junk" labor contracts or with intensive career pressure do not feel secure about taking days off to take care of sick children.
This alone is a supercritical point. Kids get sick A LOT in Poland, especially during the colder seasons. With parents being distinctly reluctant to take days off to take care of their sick kids, many end up taking their sick kids to the nursery or school instead of keeping them at home, and considering how overcrowded these nurseries and schools may be, diseases spread like fire in a dry shrub. And when your first kid gets sick and needs antibiotics on average 15-18 times a year, you probably won't feel keen to have a second one, EVEN if your financial and education situation was better.
"The reason why Polish women don't have many kids is related to poverty (low salaries, small apartments, no help from State"
The birthrate in Estonia is even lower than in Poland and they are richer. Like many othrr countries.
Brithrate, in general, is non related (or negatively related) to poverty.
Even Switzerland have negative birthrates.
Meanwhile Somalia, Afhganistab, Niger, Burundi, Gaza are the top 5 in Birthrate and all of them are extremelly poor.
"Not everybody has babcia around or money to pay for a niania."
Switzerland have very low fertility rate and i think they have money for more than 1 babcia.
Another interesting fact to enrich the debate:
The three countries with lowest fertily rate in the world are Bosnia, Singapore and South Korea.
Singapore and South Korea are also among the top 10 in the most educated countries of the world. And Singapore is nowadays the richest country in Asia (South Korea is the 3rd) and the third richest country of the world.
So again, every evidence points that more than money, education reduces fertility (what is not bad at all, the world have too many people. I just would like that some beautiful ethnicities like the Slavic could preserve themselves).
@Levi; since obviously you don't know any of these countries and not only Poland, you once more say anything. In countries like Switzerland and Germany, for instance, with very low birth rate, the situation is completely diffrent from Poland. As Polsyr has pointed out, a lot of people in Poland (including of course women) work under what is called in Poland "garbage contracts", under which they have absolutely no social rights whatsoever so how can they think about having kids? When working otherwise, they have low salaries, big risk of being unemployed (benefits are purely symbolic and very limited in time). Most Poles are badly accommodated (how to raise a family in ... 35sqm???). There are no public care facilities and no financial help for families. On top of that, Poles are very pessimistic about their future so NO kids.
The Polish government whoever are in office have no family politics. I remember when Tusk was PM, they were talking about issuing cards to families of min. 3 kids entitling them to reductions at the cinema and the zoo ;);). Sorry, this is total bs and there is much mure more to consider when raising kids than cinema and zoo entrance tickets ;).
Since obviously you don't know anything about Poland, you compare apples and oranges ;(
@Jestes: If you try to "quote" me, I used the word 'niania" when talking about afford (read messages before answering ;)).
Like I said, in countries like Switzerland, situation is different but as I know Switzerland, I can say that they are all not rich (when making less than 5,000/month extremely hard to raise family) and also I seriously doubt that there is welfare over there...
The birthrate in many developing countries is higher than in developed countries is because most of those countries don't have a social welfare systems. Retirement-age people in developing countries need to rely on their children to take care of them when they are old ( i.e. no pensions). As a result, they will likely have more children. Also in rural areas, in developing countries, famers need all the help they can get so they have more children. There are other reasons obviously for higher birth rate in the developing world. However, in general even in developing countries the birthrate is dropping in general (if you were to compare now to several decades ago).
In Poland, I think the birthrate could go up if there is more support to families from the government, and more economic opportunities/jobs for people (this would be number 1 reason). I find it kind of interesting that in the US, you can still see very large families with well-off people (I am just thinking of some reality shows). You would typically associate large families with poorer people, but this is the wrong assumption. I also think people are influenced a lot by where they live and the people they are around with -- different people have different expectations as to what their family should be.
The birth rate among Polish women is quite high ... if they live in the UK. I read this somewhere - can someone find the stats, as I'm actually at work!!
There is a BBC article from June 25, 2015 "Will more free childcare fuel baby boom?" You can google it.
Excerpt:
"If immigration to the UK ended tomorrow Britain's population would continue to grow because people are living longer and recent arrivals from countries such as Poland, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are boosting fertility rates."
There is also a statement in the article that the fertility rate for Polish women in the UK is 2.1 compared to 1.4 in Poland.
the village is full of men in their 30,s and 40,s in fact all ages really, who have never married
Yes, many are primitive conservative rightists who will never marry coz decent women reject such losers.
Yes,. bingo! Educated women realise they have been exploited by shrewd men to do everything while male masters sit on a comfy sofa and expect full service. No more!
There is also a statement in the article that the fertility rate for Polish women in the UK is 2.1 compared to 1.4 in Poland
Indeed, Poles will help to pay for the pensions of many old British people. And I am sure that most Brits appreciate that. But why is it that they "bonk" more in the UK than in Poland?
Stability. People didn't have to worry about job stability or basic life necessities
Strange but I have to disagree. The latest peak of births in Poland was in 1980s, during martial law, which you could hardly call times of stability - shortages of basic products, queues, regime`s brutality. Do you remember that nearly 1 million people emigrated from that stable paradise in 1980s?? The previous peak took place right after WW2 which also weren`t such peaceful times.
The answer is different - there were more births in communist times coz the society was patriarchal - hugely oriented on satisfying males` needs and disregarding women`s. Women were dominated and often had no choice but to bear a few kids.
Educated women realise they have been exploited by shrewd men to do everything while male masters sit on a comfy sofa and expect full service. No more!
The previous peak took place right after WW2 which also weren`t such peaceful times.
Poland grew from 23 to 40 million under communism. The first peak, as you rightly notice, took place in post-war years - not right after but several years later when the situation stabilised - and it was a bigger one in terms of children per woman (my grandparents' generation had more children than my parents' generation). The late 70s early 80s peak was the echo of that first peak (women born in the first peak having children of their own - fewer than their mothers but still quite a few).
Stability played a huge part. But also the fact that the society was more uniform, there weren't such disparities in wealth, and the culture didn't promote consumerism as much. When I talk to women from my mum's generation they all say the same thing: everyone had a job, you didn't have to worry about basic necessities, even if there were shortages in shops you could always organise (załatwić) everything - they felt safer (not my words but theirs).
