Hardly a week goes by without the conventional or social media bringing up the alarmingly low birth rate in Poland, now sitting at just 1.09. Conservatives are sounding the alarm, calling on the state to address the issue and “do something.” Yet, no one seems to have a concrete idea for how to effectively increase the number of births. Niezalezna.pl asked Professor Krystyna Iglicka, an expert in demography and economics, what has led to the current situation and whether there’s any hope for improvement.
Demography and declining fertility have become hot topics recently. According to the report The State of Youth 2025, the main reason why young people aged 18–29 do not want to have children (now or in the future) is a declared aversion to kids. As many as 18% of Gen Zers have no intention of starting a family at all. In total, 39% of young people expressed this sentiment. Should we be worried?
“I don’t really believe that young people have stopped liking children,” says Prof. Iglicka. “These declarations are insufficient. To understand what’s behind this declared aversion, we’d have to dig deeper. The survey questions won’t reveal the full picture. The root causes of declining fertility likely lie elsewhere.”
Still, one fact is clear: the younger generation that lived through the pandemic and witnessed their parents struggling in lockdown realized just how difficult caregiving and day-to-day organization can be under abnormal conditions. For a long time, everyone was stripped of the ability to leave home and socialize. Many people were driven to near madness by anxiety about the future. There was a widespread sense of danger — a global fear, since the pandemic hit the entire world. There was nowhere to escape. This experience affected the mental state of young people across the globe, not just in Poland. Now, they want to enjoy life again, to bask in a return to normality, and to avoid the kinds of harsh problems their parents faced during COVID.
Looking at it globally, it seems that depopulation messages come in and out of fashion. Currently, we are clearly in an era of “global depopulation evangelists,” with all the societal cues that come with it.
Conspiracy theories aside, birth rate declines — sometimes sharp, sometimes less so — are being recorded worldwide.
That the pandemic contributed to lower birth rates is a surprising but interesting conclusion. After all, the pandemic began over five years ago!
“When I speak with young students around age 20, they often describe the pandemic as a terrifying and traumatic time — a horror story,” says Iglicka. “They were robbed of key experiences at the very beginning of adulthood. And now, they’re entering childbearing age.”
Incidentally, the State of Youth 2025 report includes insights into how young people view education. The most positive views came from those who did not experience remote learning — i.e., the older Gen Z cohort. Meanwhile, those who did attend online school described it as boring and outdated.
As a small consolation, Iglicka notes that demography shows a global trend toward delaying major life events, like marriage and having a first child — now happening around the age of 30. “Perhaps this generation will still ‘cool off’ from the trauma of the pandemic.”
Still, the declining fertility trend began well before the pandemic.
Based on the research we discussed, we can’t definitively say what’s causing low fertility among Poles.
But one fact is clear: many of the policy tools aimed at boosting birth rates simply haven’t worked or lived up to expectations.
“During the pandemic, I argued with people who believed that increasing the 500+ child benefit would trigger a baby boom like during martial law in the 1980s,” Iglicka recalls. “But martial law was temporary and politically motivated. There were at least escape options — external or internal emigration. But with COVID, there was nowhere to run. It was a global phenomenon, and the restrictions lasted long enough to leave a serious psychological mark and a persistent sense of danger.”
And speaking of safety — it is absolutely crucial when it comes to deciding to become a parent.
“Most people wouldn’t instinctively connect personal anxiety with fertility rates,” she says, “but it’s really just common sense. There are a lot of risks these days. Take inflation — it often prevents parents from helping their children launch adult lives, because everything is so expensive. Young people usually don’t have savings and face difficulties in the labor market. How are they supposed to live independently?”
“Sometimes I feel like the human population is being used for some kind of stress-testing,” Iglicka adds. “I’m trying to understand the playbook behind how the pandemic, wars, and looming global threats are being communicated and managed.”
“Just turn on the TV or check any news or social media feed — we’re constantly bombarded with fear: security threats, climate extremes, cancer spikes, food shortages, catastrophes… No positives.”
Declining birth rates also affect older cohorts, not just Gen Z. Many of them could still have started families or had more children. So what went wrong?
In the past, many Poles chose to have children abroad. After joining the European Union, new opportunities opened up — access to benefits, better-paying jobs. As a result, Polish birth rates rose in foreign countries.
At the same time, many young people from the early 1980s baby boom emigrated. That created a demographic void — and their children are less likely to start families in a country they don’t know well.
That gap was partially filled by the influx of Ukrainians during the Law and Justice (PiS) government. But today, immigration is a more controversial topic. Still, some children are born from Polish-Ukrainian couples. Many young Ukrainians also arrived, and their attitudes toward having children warrant separate research.
“I’ve found myself in a social media echo chamber where declining fertility is trending hard — and unfortunately, it’s being weaponized in a hate campaign against women, blaming them for low birth rates,” says Iglicka. “It’s tempting to protest, but even the report shows that young women are most reluctant to have children — even though they enter relationships more often. What could be driving this parental skepticism?”
“Maybe women are just a bit more responsible? To start a family, a woman needs to feel secure — physically and financially. She needs to be sure of her footing and have trust in her chosen partner. Biology also plays a big role in how we form relationships — and this has been backed up by numerous studies.”
Another key factor is widespread access to contraception — with the exception of the deepest parts of the developing world.
But men struggle too. Culturally, men are still expected to provide for their partner and family. Low wages can lead to frustration and undermine a man’s readiness to take on the role of provider. This is especially true given the persistent gender pay gap — which, while not huge in Poland (around 6%), still influences expectations. Men are still seen as responsible for a family’s financial security. But in today’s high-inflation world, even a stable job makes saving nearly impossible.
Returning to young people’s stated reluctance to start families, Iglicka concludes: “We just have to wait for the world to become a bit friendlier. You can’t force this. Promoting family values in the media is important — showing that families offer support and closeness — but without positive messaging from home, it’ll be hard to convince young people to become parents.”
“Anti-family messaging can be deeply embedded in the minds of younger generations. Gen Z watched their parents suffer through the pandemic. Millennials saw their parents working themselves to the bone to repay loans, enduring the ‘grind culture,’ building corporations, and chasing Western standards of living. Now it’s the middle class that’s hit the hardest. In such conditions, it’s difficult to see the extraordinary value of children and family when you’re just trying to survive each day.”
“John Paul II once said that we now live in a ‘culture of death,’ and I believe that everything encapsulated in that term contributes to low fertility.”