The Republic of Poland is the sixth largest country in the EU[1] both in population size (38 million in 2017) and area (312 679 km2) and the largest country in central and eastern Europe. The current Polish borders were established after the Second World War. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west, Czechia and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east and Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast (a federal subject of the Russian Federation) to the north-east. The Baltic Sea delimits Poland in the north. Poland’s border is 3511 km long in total (Fig1.1).
Fig1.1
The territory of Poland is divided into 16 voivodeships (districts) and the capital city is Warsaw (the largest city in Poland, with a population of 1.8 million). In 2017, 60.2% of the country’s population lived in urban areas (GUS, 2018f). In terms of ethnicity, language and religion, Poland is more homogeneous than most countries in the region. Poles make up 97.1% of the population, with German, Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities accounting for the remainder. The official language is Polish and it is spoken at home by 98.2% of the population. Languages other than Polish are spoken at home by nearly 1 million people (usually as a second language, after Polish) (GUS, 2013). The majority (87%) of the population is Roman Catholic, with the main religious minorities being Orthodox, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Protestants and several other very small groups (GUS, 2016).
The share of population aged 65 and above has been increasing steadily (Table1.1) and in 2014 surpassed the share of population aged 0–14 for the first time (WB, 2018b). The population share aged 0–65 is expected to decrease by about 30% by 2050 whereas the population aged 65+ is expected to grow by as much as 89% (GUS, 2014b).
Table1.1
In addition to ageing, another important demographic trend is the decreasing total population. A short period of population growth was observed between 2008 and 2011 but, on the whole, total population has decreased by approximately 1.7% over the last two decades. Changes in population size vary geographically. Between 2010 and 2017, five out of 16 voivodeships (Małopolskie, Mazowieckie, Podkarpackie, Pomorskie and Wielkopolskie) have seen their populations increase – in all of them this was due to a positive natural population growth and in four (all except the Podkarpackie voivodeship) also due to a positive net migration rate (positive net migration was the highest in the Mazowieckie voivodeship, of which Warsaw is the capital) (GUS, 2018d). According to national forecasts, the total population size is expected to decrease by nearly 12% by 2050 compared with 2016 (GUS, 2014b).
The fertility rate has been below replacement level (replacement rate is 2.1 births per woman) since the 1990s and was 1.45 in 2017 (Table1.1). With the number of deaths exceeding the number of the live births since 2013[2] (by almost 1000 in 2017; GUS, 2018d), the natural population growth is negative. The net migration for permanent residence has been positive since 2016 (1400 persons in 2017; for comparison, in 2014, the number of persons who left the country exceeded the number of persons who obtained permanent residency by 15 800), but its value is not high enough to ensure population growth.