Population Development in Poland

Since the early 1990, Poland, similarly to other Eastern and Central European countries, has experienced a rapid transformation in population development, which resulted first of all in the declining propensity to marry, declining fertility with increasing proportion of extramarital births, very slowly decreasing mortality and strongly increasing volume of international migration. The crucial changes in the demographic phenomena have been occurring in the course of the social and economic transformation of society accompanied by high unemployment and growing poverty among selected groups of population. Hence, it may be argued that the changes in demographic behaviour have been also inspired by major socio-economic pressures as well as by the present level of material well-being.