Age structure and growth rate

Over the last few years life expectancy in Poland has been increasing steadily and the forecasts for the future are optimistic. For men, this rate is predicted to grow from the current 69 years to 74 years in 2025, while for women, from 78 to 81 years (compared with respectively 56 and 61.6 years in 1950).
Polish society is not young, but it cannot be called old yet. An average Pole is almost 35 years old (for women, it is 37 years; for men, 33 years). 56.2 percent of Poles are below 40 (24.1 percent are under 17; 11.8 percent between 18 and 24; 20.3 percent between 25 and 39). 27.1 percent are in the 40-59 bracket and 16.7 percent are above 60 (14.7 percent between 60 and 79; 2 percent are 80 years old or more).
Polish women have a lower life expectancy than women in Switzerland, Italy, Norway and Sweden, but higher than females in Hungary, Ukraine, Turkey and Russia. Polish men live longer than males in Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary, but shorter than men in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and Britain.
The birth rate is on the decline. While in 1996 there were 428,200 births, in 2003 the figure dropped to just 351,000 (compared with a record 723,000 babies born in 1983).
The highest natural growth rate in Poland was recorded immediately after the war, between 1945 and 1955, culminating in 1955 when it reached 19.5%o (532,000 people). The second post-war decade saw a steady decline which continued until 1969 when the natural growth rate was 8.2%o (268,000 people). The downward trend changed in 1970. Natural growth began to rise and by 1976 it reached 10.7%o. From 1984 onwards it started to lose dynamism again - slowly until 1990 and rapidly in the 1990s. This has continued until today. In 1990 the figure was 4.1%o; in 1994 - 2.5%o; in 1995 - 1.2%o; in 1998 - 0.5%o; in 1999 - 0%o.
Young Poles study and work (over the last 10 years the number of students has tripled), are preoccupied with their careers, run their own businesses and increasingly postpone marriage and having children. In the early 1990s Polish women statistically got married at 22, in the mid 1990s the figure was closer to 23, and now it's 24. Most of them become mothers between the age of 25 and 29 (compared with 20-24 in the early 1990s). The better educated they are, the more frequently they postpone having children until their late twenties. The number of unmarried women is also increasing; currently it is about 20 percent (compared with just 5 percent in the early 1990s). In this respect, Poland has become similar to Switzerland and Sweden. The most common family model is still 2+2, although increasingly couples decide to have only one child.
After the war, Poland had the highest number of marriages in 1948 (319,200). The rapid but short increase in both marriages and births between 1945 and 1948 is known as compensation process. From 1949 onwards the number of marriages began to drop steadily and after a few years it reached a stable level of 260,000-270,000 a year. This continued until the late 1950s. The next decade brought further decline, with a record low of only 199,900 marriages in 1965. From 1966 onwards the number started to rise again, reaching 330,800 by 1974. Then a new downward trend began. In 2003 there were 195,000 marriages in Poland.
While the number of marriages goes down, divorces are on the increase. Compared with the post-war period, in the 1980s and 1990s, the divorce rate skyrocketed. In 1946 only 8,000 couples terminated their marriage; in 1960 there were 14,800 divorces; in 1970 - 34,600; in 1980 - 39,800; in 1990 - 42,400; and in 2003 - 48,600.
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