Over 15,000 out of 272,700 births recorded in Poland in 2023 were migrants, meaning that 5.5 percent of all births in Poland last year were of foreign origin, according to data from Poland’s Central Office of Statistics (GUS). Back in 2021, out of that year’s 331,000 births, only 7,000 were the offspring of migrants, representing 2 percent of the total. Out of the over 15,000 foreign births in Poland for 2023, 12,800 were Ukrainian and 775 Belarusian.
Out of the total number of births in 2023, for the first time, one in 20 came from foreigners. Meanwhile, the trend for births in Poland is abysmal. The total number of births in the country, which was 375,000 in 2019, shows a clear decline. In 2020, it was 355,000, while 331,000 were born in 2021, 305,000 in 2022, and now in 2023, it fell another 33,000 to 272,700, representing an annual decrease of 11 percent.
The figures from 2023 represent the lowest number of births in the country since the end of the Second World War.
For the first time in Polish history, the birth rate fell to under 1.20 from 1.26 in 2022. This means that Poland is now among the countries with the lowest birth rates in the world.
Over the last six years, the number of births in Poland has fallen by over 30 percent. The number of women in prime childbearing age of 30 years of age has fallen from 660,000 a decade ago to just 475,000 in 2023. It is forecast that this number will decrease to just 340,000 in 10 years.
GUS forecasts that Poland’s population will fall by 4.8 million (12.7 percent) to 32.9 million by 2060. According to these figures, those over 65 years of age will account for 30 percent of the total population, a 2.5 million person increase over 2020. And the number of women of childbearing age will be only 71 percent of the 2022 figure.
The number of those of working age is also set to diminish. By 2060, it will fall by over 23 percent, representing a drop of approximately 5.1 million.
