In 2025, the number of births was approximately 168,000 lower than the number of deaths. The rate of natural increase stood at minus 4.5 per 1,000 population, compared with minus 4.2 a year earlier. Preliminary data show around 238,000 live births were registered, about 14,000 fewer than in 2024.

“We more or less expected this figure”, said Professor Piotr Szukalski, a demographer at the University of Lodz and member of the Council for Family and Demography at the President of the Republic of Poland.

According to Szukalski, the decline is consistent with long-term forecasts and reflects overlapping structural processes. He said Poland has been preparing for depopulation for years. “The increasing age at which women most often decide to have children is combined with increasingly smaller age groups”, he said. “At the same time, people born in the first years of the post-war baby boom are entering the age of high mortality”.

People born in the first year of the post-war baby boom will turn 80 in 2025, he noted. “The clash of these two trends means that negative rate of natural increase will continue”, he said.

Asked about the impact of family support programmes such as 500+ and 800+, Szukalski said it is difficult to assess their effectiveness. “We cannot say how effective these programmes are because we do not know what would happen if they were not in place”, he said. “Calling them ineffective is an overstatement, because we have no point of reference”.

He said Poland is not an outlier in Europe. “Practically all of Europe has been experiencing a sharp decline in fertility rates over the last three to four years”, he said. “Yes, along with Lithuania and the countries of southern Europe, we are among the countries with the lowest fertility rates, but this is not a uniquely Polish problem”.

Szukalski said the drop in fertility between 2020 and 2023 had rational explanations, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of war in Ukraine. “The uncertainty was real and intense”, he said. “Today, however, one threat has disappeared, and the public has become accustomed to the other, and yet we see no rebound. This raises the question about deeper, structural causes”.

He added that Poland’s fertility rate is effectively lower than headline figures suggest. “In 2024, almost 7% of children born in Poland were to mothers with non-Polish citizenships”, he said.

Public debate has included concerns that the closure of maternity wards could influence reproductive decisions. Eighteen wards closed in the first month of this year alone.

“This may be an additional factor, but probably not a key one”, Szukalski said. “Maternity wards are being closed in places with the lowest birth rates, not in large cities”.

He said closures also have medical justification. “If a ward does not handle at least 200-300 births per year, the staff lacks sufficient experience in responding to crisis situations”, he said. “If the closure of maternity wards were the decisive factor, in the future we would see the greatest decline in willingness to have children in rural areas”.

Szukalski said generational and cultural factors are central. “The question is to what extent the very low fertility rate is a result of a generation reaching adulthood for whom a child is not a sign of success in life”, he said.

“For my mother's generation, marriage and having a child were obvious signs of adulthood. For mine, they were signs of stability and achievement in life”, he said. He added that “today we have the first mass generation of only children, Peter Pans, some of whom perceive a child as a limitation rather than fulfilment”.

Asked whether the trend could be reversed, Szukalski said “there is always a chance, but we do not fully know what factors truly determine readiness to have children”.

He said he supports a “mix” of measures. “Nurseries are crucial for young, professionally active women in large cities. The 800+ programme is more important for low-income individuals than for those earning 10,000-12,000 PLN per month”, he said. “Only a set of various tools can lower the barriers to pursuing reproductive plans - provided someone actually has such plans”.

“The most important factor, however, is still the cultural one”, he added. “Until having children becomes something socially respected, important, fashionable even, the chances of reversing the trend are slim”. “If we define success in life in other terms, a child may be perceived as an obstacle rather than a confirmation of it”, he said.

Mira Suchodolska (PAP)

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