High migration and fertility problems have been a concern for Polish governments for years. A better standard of living is the main way to combat the former, and as Poland has become richer and wages have increased, emigration rates have consequently decreased. However, convincing Polish women to have more children seems to be much more difficult than growing the economy. According to BalkanInsight, 2008 represented a government turning point in the face of increased fertility: longer and more flexible maternity and parental leave were instituted, and additional financial support for families was introduced, although family allowance expenses remained modest.

In 2016, the populist and socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, blaming previous governments for the demographic situation in the country, implemented a radical new pro-birth plan. In an effort to encourage families to have more children, it launched the Family 500+ program, through which families receive 500 zlotys per month for every second and subsequent child up to the age of 18. Subsequently, the subsidy was also extended to the first child. For the next two years, the number of births increased, and then went back, so much so that the number of births in 2020 was the lowest since 2003. Along with other policy measures, this financial aid seems to have impressed families who already intended to have more children, and, unsure how long the policy would be in place, they rushed to have them. In fiscal terms, the sums involved are enormous, even though the transfers do not seem in themselves to have encouraged people to become parents. The 500+ policy seems to have had the political effects desired by the government, rather than the economic-demographic ones. It has been of help to low-income families, going to form a faithful nucleus of PiS voters. and has allowed tens of thousands of women to stop working, thereby exacerbating labor shortages. Falling birth rates and emigration mean that the number of Poles of working age in the country is decreasing. This was one of the reasons why in 2012 the retirement age was set to gradually increase, for both men and women, to the age of 67. In 2016, however, the government abolished this reform, returning the retirement age to the previous 60 years for women and 65 for men. Although this move has met with a lot of popular support, it means that pensioners will receive lower pensions in the future, with the country already having a significantly smaller workforce.

From 2015 to 2050, the number of people aged 15-64 is set to fall by 28% and the number of people aged 65 and over will increase by 83%. While birth rates in Western European countries have also fallen, the population of many of them has at the same time increased thanks to immigration, which also comes from Poland. What makes Poland different, however, is that it has recently become simultaneously a country of emigration and mass immigration. As early as 2007, policymakers made it clear that Poland would soon face a labor shortage and therefore immigration rules would be changed, making it easier for employers to hire foreigners, particularly Ukrainians. And while the number of migrants began to increase slowly, especially in construction and agriculture, replacing Poles that were going west, it was only with the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014 that the flow really began to increase considerably. Most Ukrainians entered into short-term contracts rather than settling permanently, and since it was easy to access the labor market legally, it was assumed that there was only a small number of uncharted in the country. In recent years, it has been commonly estimated that there could be about a million Ukrainians in Poland, depending mainly on the agricultural calendar. However, in June 2020 the Polish Statistics Agency published estimates for the number of foreigners in the country: according to this research, by the end of February, it had been 2.2 million, of which 1.39 million were Ukrainians, followed by Belarusians. Subsequently, in the first two months of the pandemic, the authorities recorded a drop of 223,000 foreigners or 10%.

But why are there many more foreigners, and especially Ukrainians, in Poland than previously thought? One of the reasons could be a complicated and time-consuming bureaucracy that makes registration difficult. The second reason is that employers are happy to pay workers illegally in cash and some of them, in turn, want to avoid paying taxes and health insurance. In addition, an increasing number of Ukrainians may no longer be happy to move between borders, settling permanently and bringing their families.

The results of this year’s Polish census, which opened between 1 April and 30 June, will confirm the trends of a shrinking and aging population, but it is hoped that it will help to clarify where there is none today. The 21 March census in England and Wales should at the same time help with regard to the real number of Poles in Britain. If there are many more Poles in the United Kingdom than previously thought and, at the same time, several hundred thousand more Ukrainians and others in Poland, how many people actually live in Poland, and how many are there? With the answers to these questions, you will be able to understand to what extent Poland has matured in the direction of the wealthiest Western countries, and whether it could solve its demographic and social problems through migratory flows.