Is the low fertility rate in Poland related to excessive alcohol consumption by women? At least that is what the leader of the conservative party in power in the country explains with confidence but against all scientific words.
“If nothing changes, that is, if a young woman drinks as much as her peers up to the age of 25, she will not have children. Because you have to remember that “A man, to become an alcoholic, must drink excessively for 20 years on average and a woman only two years,” explained Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Saturday during a public meeting.
The chairman of the Law and Justice (PiS) party therefore claims that if Polish women have fewer children it is because they drink too much. He claims to have this information from a “doctor” who allegedly told him that he had “managed to cure a third of his male patients from alcoholism, but not the women.”
“Women compete with men”
He stressed that he is not in favor of women having children at a very young age, because “women must mature to be mothers.” “But if, up to the age of 25, she drinks a lot – there, I’m joking a bit – she doesn’t bode well in this area.”
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is touring the provinces to mobilize his party executives ahead of the 2023 parliamentary elections, addressed the issue on Sunday in Olsztyn, in the northeast of the country.
“I said yesterday that young women compete with men for alcohol consumption. It is objectively harmful. And an honest politician, if he knows about it, he has to talk about it, because it’s harmful,” he said.
His statement goes against the numbers: Polish women on average drink less than men. 10% of Polish women aged 18-29 drink an average of 7.5 liters of alcohol per year and most are single, unemployed or students. Much less than the national average, which is about 10 liters per year per person.
1.39 children per woman in Poland
This controversial exit must be understood in a context of concern by the authorities regarding the very low fertility rate in the country: 1.39 children per woman on average in 2020 according to data aggregated by the World Bank when a rate of around 2.1 would be necessary to prevent a drop in the population of Polish-born inhabitants. This rate is also lower than the European average: 1.53 in 2019 according to the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED).
The Polish population is falling this way because the country’s low fertility is not compensated by immigration, as is the case in Germany, for example, which has a comparable fertility rate. Life expectancy, which is increasing in the country, is also not enough. Since 2015, the PiS grants a benefit of more than one hundred euros for birth from the second child.
Reactions were strong to this exit, especially in the opposition.
“Kaczynski showed that he had nothing, he knew nothing about women, our projects, our dreams and life. But he gave himself the right to decide our lives, our dreams and our bodies. It is a source of unhappiness for young Polish women” . tweeted Barbara Nowacka, a leftist Polish politician and feminist.
To explain the decline in the birth rate in the country, some feminist activists use a justification that they consider more likely. Since 2020, Poland has heavily restricted access to abortion and it is now almost prohibited, even in the case of malformation of the embryo, prompting numerous demonstrations. According to activists, this decision could have encouraged women to avoid becoming pregnant.
Source: BFM TV
