Population Explosion

Over the last couple of decades Poland had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe where only Czech, Lithuanian and Romanian women had a lower fertility rate. With an aging population prospects of continuing growth looked dim especially in the workforce being large enough to fulfill the demands of employers. 

Polish couples got to work making more babies partially due to a government program giving 500 zloty per month to families with children. Nearly PLN 19 billion ($5 billion) has been paid out for nearly four million children under the government's flagship 500+ family benefit program, according to the Polish family minister.  
 
Under the scheme, the government gives parents PLN 500 a month for each child in low-income families, and for second and subsequent children in all other families. About 4 million children under the age of 18 have benefited from the government program since it was implemented last April

Poland had an 11% year to year hike in number of births in July.  Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (DGP) reports 35,000 new born babies citing the latest data by stats office GUS.

January-July year to year births increased 9% to 235,000. By the end of the year births are expected to exceed 400,000 if the trend is maintained .

Factors that seem to improved the birthrate include a better economic situation, shrinking unemployment, rising wages, a high number of women aged 29-34 and the positive impact of the government's family support scheme 500+.

Per-capita disposable income of Polish households rose at a moderate pace in the case of 500+ beneficiaries and wealth gap narrowing. 

Sex Ed

Poland's Ministry of Education has opposed including sexual education classes in every school's curriculum. According to the ministry, obligatory sex classes are unconstitutional.

Parents have the right to bring up their children as they see fit, teaching them morality and religion in agreement with their beliefs. But sexual health campaigners disagree. "If parents do not agree with Darwin's theory, it does not mean that their children can skip biology lessons", argues Maria Keller-Hamela from Nobody's Children Foundation, who supports sexual education.

Michal Baran, however, from the Youth Catholic Association claims that, "It is absolutely unacceptable for the state to take the role of parents in bringing up children." Baran explains that teaching sexuality should be accompanied by morality lessons.

In January, the Union of Polish Teachers signed an agreement aiming at propagating sexual education in Polish schools. During sex classes pupils were to learn how to protect themselves against HIV and AIDS and how to practice birth control. Because of the government's objection to the plan, starting from the new school year, sexual education classes will become an extra-curriculum activity only for those who are willing to take part in them.

Frequent Sex in Poland

The Poles have the most frequent sex in Europe, show latest international survey results. Not long ago sexologists complained that Poland lagged behind in Europe as far as sex is concerned.

It was said Poles were neither inactive nor inventive in bed. In a word – underdeveloped.

Opening up to the world and two decades of economic growth sufficed to make Poles one of the most amorous nations in Europe. Poles are better than romantic Italians and sexually liberated French. Recently published research commissioned by Bayer Schering Pharma shows that 12.6 percent of Poles over 18 have sex every day. Only 8 percent of Europeans from other countries have equally frequent sex. As many as 49.5 percent of Poles make love more often that once a week.

Sex in Poland

Poles rank fourth in the world in terms of satisfaction with their sex lives, according to the latest Durex's Sexual Wellbeing Survey, which interviewed 26,000 respondents from 26 countries.Poles also lead very active sex lives, "doing it" 143 times per year, compared to the survey's average of 103. Also, 79% of Polish respondents said sex was "important," the second result only behind Greece.

Government going to extreme lengths

A Polish lawmaker has called for a miniskirt ban as part of an overall crusade against the "enticement to sex" by women in public.

Artur Zawisza, a Catholic member of the breakaway "Right of the Republic" party (Prawica Rzeczypolpoliteij) , wants to ban miniskirts as well as heavy makeup and see-through blouses in a proposal he says is aimed at prostitutes. His initiative would rob Polish streetwalkers of a means of advertising, he says, according to Newsweek Polska.

Although Zawisza admits the ban might have a chilling effect on women who aren't prostitutes. "It is possible that a pretty girl on the way home from a disco might get arrested," he said, but he trusted Polish police to "tell the difference between respectable women and women with loose morals."


Planning to stay a step ahead of the potential of a government crack down - A little Polish ingenuity by working girls is illustrated at right.



The call for a less "enticing" Polish streetscape comes days ahead of the so-called World Congress of Families, a conference in Warsaw of American and European conservatives. A right-wing American think tank, the Howard Center, has organized the Congress with more than 20 American groups which all blame the weakening of western Europe on its tolerance of abortion, gay marriage, and other perceived social ills. Poland -- which has strict anti-abortion laws, but also a low birth rate -- looks to the organizers like a bastion of family values.

"Europe is almost lost to demographic winter and to the secularists, " reads a WCF paper explaining why this year's conference should be in Warsaw. "If Europe goes much of the world will go with it. Almost alone, Poland has maintained strong faith and strong families ... On family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point."



The last miniskirt ban in Europe dates to 1967, when a Greek military junta under General Pattakos banned both miniskirts and beards.