Reading the demographic projection for the world, published already in 2019 by the United Nations induces shivers, Central and Eastern Europe is expected to face severe depopulation by the end of the century. The report was drafted before Russia invaded Ukraine, so it doesn't take into account the demographic trends caused by the war: migration, refugees, fear of war, which are leaving their mark not only on Ukraine, but on neighboring countries. But even in this incomplete form, the report from five years ago carries very disturbing news
The most pessimistic prediction assumed that the region could lose up to 40 % of its population by the end of the 21st century. In the optimistic one, the demographic decline will be only a quarter. And at the same time, virtually nothing will change in Western Europe. The population will fall by four percent only. And until recently, after all, it was thought that it was the West that was aging and depopulating. The better demographic forecast is due to migration, including that from Central and Eastern Europe, which has drained our societies.
Now our societies will age and shrink. That means, they will become weak, and the new generations will be poorer than their parents' generations.
Our countries are preoccupied with the war and providing support for the embattled Ukraine (with the exception of Hungary and perhaps Slovakia), on an ongoing basis trying to extinguish the social problems created by the Russian onslaught. The issue of integrating Ukrainian refugees is a mammoth task. The demographic crisis? It is difficult to look for any solutions in this matter, although there are more alarming signs than just statistics.
In 2023, the fewest children will be born in Poland since the end of the World War II. For the first time in history, the rate at which the Polish population is shrinking is in double digits. Last year it stood at - 11 %. And the number of births has fallen by as much as 30 % over the past six years. The fertility rate is 1.33. This factor has fallen by 30 % in 30 years.
The rule of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which introduced an almost total ban on abortion, contributed to this dramatic situation. According to sociologists, Polish women have simply rebelled and do not want to give birth. But there are more reasons for women's reluctance to give birth.
Ada is 34 years old and doesn't even think about becoming a mother: - I'm afraid that in case of fetal defects I won't be able to decide whether I want to carry such a pregnancy to term. The economic situation is catastrophic. On top of that, I live far away from my family, and I see how hard it is for girls who don't have aunts or grandmothers close by.
Vera: Nothing has ploughed me as much as pregnancy - wanted and planned - I recovered faster from being hit by a car and having surgery, after which I have dozens of stitches.
Gosia, mother of a 14-month-old boy: - I had postpartum depression. I was left completely alone with it. I don't think about a second child, because I'm afraid it could happen again.
Magda: - I have twin daughters. For the first three years of their lives, I was not there at all, I was completely annihilated in terms of my needs. I took a breather when I returned to work.
"The arrival of a child drastically worsens a family's economic situation," says Professor Paula Pustułka, head of the Youth Research Center at the LAB Center at SWPS University in Warsaw. – "Women suffer the calculable consequences of motherhood: their chances for promotion, the possibility of a dynamic increase in earnings and a decent pension decrease. And Polish women are aware of this".
Prof. Pustułka conducted a study: women with their first pregnancy were asked how many children they wanted to have. Most said two or three. "When we went back to them a year after having a child, they said: The case is closed". They are giving up on more children because the state is failing them, but also their partners, who do not support them in taking care of their children.
Poland lacks kindergartens and nurseries; health care is limping along. Having one's own apartment is a luxury attainable for fewer and fewer people. Education is in such a state that entire families have to contribute for the tuition fees as long as the child attends a private school or private universities. As many as a quarter of Polish families (2.3 million!) are single-parent families, most of them single mothers. Meanwhile, the collection of alimony is at a disastrous level. Single motherhood means poverty, and young Polish women know it. On top of that, surveys show a widening gap between young women and men. Twice as many Polish women have higher education than Polish men.
At the same time, they are liberal in their worldview, they mostly dream of the so-called traditional family. Joanna tells us about this: - I'm 31, I'm a lawyer, I have an apartment, I'm healthy. I would like a child, but I have no one to have it with. Finding the right man borders on a miracle.
Veronica is 39 years old and has two daughters aged four and six: - I wanted to have three children, but four years ago my partner closed the business, and with it the desire to do anything at home. I earn well, so I support us, I call myself a lady-banker. After work I embrace my daughters and the house. I'm thinking about ligating my fallopian tubes, because I would die if I had another child.
In 1989, Slovakia was still one of the countries with great demographic prospects with Slovak women giving birth to 2 children on average. By the end of the millennium, the number had dropped to 1.2.
"The deeper the fall, the more it hurts," comments Slovak demographer Branislav Bleha from Comenius University in Bratislava, referring to the significant drop in birth rates in Slovakia compared to other countries where the rate had been declining gradually for some time.
In recent years, Slovakia’s birth rate has stabilized around 1.6 children per woman.
Like other countries in the region, Slovakia is experiencing a demographic shift towards an aging population. "Our population is still among the younger ones, partly due to the Roma population that has a different reproductive regime. However, the average age now starts with the numeral 4, and the number of children is smaller than the number of the people over 65."
Even though the last decade of the 20th century was quite dramatic for Slovak demography, the country had been experiencing a drop in birth rates since the 1970s when a strong generation of "Husák’s children" was born. This phenomenon named after the Communist-time Czechoslovak president Gustav Husak concerns both Slovakia and the Czech Republic and it is an equivalent to the "baby boom," partly attributed to the social engineering of the communist regime.
Husák’s children are still an active generation, now approaching their 50s. This strong generation will start retiring in some 15-20 years, leaving the much weaker next generations to support their pensions.
"The future is not promising; Slovakia will become one of the fastest-aging populations," says Bleha. "By 2050, we will have twice as many retired people as children."
The generation of Husák’s children don’t really rely on the state to take care of them once they retire. "If you don’t take care of yourself, the populist rhetoric of the government will not help you," thinks Svetlana Malová, who is now 51. "We are the generation that was lucky enough to have open borders and the opportunity to do business."
Ivan Scholtz doesn’t think about the future demographic shift at all. "There are other things to be worried about. If I sell one of my flats, I guess I will be fine," he says when asked whether he is worried about his future pension.
"I am saving my own mental health by putting absolutely no trust in the state," says Malová.
Many believe one must seek happiness for oneself. For some, it is easier to find a quality life abroad than in Slovakia. Malová's son lives in Germany. "Of course, I would like to have him nearby," says Svetlana, "but as a mother, my biggest priority is his happiness."
Migration in Slovakia also works the other way around. According to the Interior Ministry, Slovakia is currently home to more than 300,000 foreigners, most of them Ukrainians.
"In comparison with the Czech Republic, we are falling behind. They have managed to receive twice as many Ukrainians per capita," says Bleha. "What is more concerning is that we are losing students and educated professionals like doctors. And this is something we will not easily replace."
Erzsébet emigrated with her husband and small children in the 1980s. They moved back in 1991 and settled in a small town in the Great Plain (Alföld). She still lives there in a two-storey, multi-generational home – alone. Her husband passed away, one of her kids moved to Germany, the other lives in the US. She has two grandchildren who were born just before the pandemic. They were three years old when she first got to see them. "They have no intention of coming back, and I cannot leave. What would happen to the house? I also have my friends here, former colleagues, my postman…" – she says. In the past two years she visited both her children for a few days. The grandkids will "come home for the first time" this summer.
The towns and villages close to the borders of Hungary are undergoing rapid depopulation.
In Békés county next to the Romanian border the population decreased by 12,6% since 2011, 8,8% of it due to natural decline, and 3,8% due to emigration. The situation is similar in North-East Hungary. The decrease was 10% in Nógrád and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén counties bordering Slovakia. There are many tiny villages in the South-Western and Western parts of the country, all of them ageing and desolating by leaps and bounds. People leave these areas, especially young ones of reproductive age, with the purpose of picking up living in the capital, in the North-Western part of the country close to the Austrian border, or in Western Europe.
If one takes a long-term perspective and includes regions other than those of the periphery, the picture is even uglier. In this millennium, the number of people under the age of 10 decreased by 13,2% in Hungary. There are hundreds of settlements where the number of children is less than half of what it was in 2001.
In the middle of the 2010s a mass emigration occurred, and more than 300 000 people have left the country since then. Many of them were young people who settled down and started a family – though not in Hungary, but in Western Europe or overseas. However, it is not just these children that are missing. People of reproductive age still residing in Hungary want fewer children. And while the government offers targeted support for families with three or more children, those with just one or two kids receive much less. Another issue is the constant war psychosis fuelled by the governing parties. There was even talk of the prospect of nuclear war during the 2024 EP election campaign. None of this is an encouraging climate for people to have children.
The total fertility rate, which has to be at 2.1 at least for a society to sustain its population, rose in Hungary from 1.2-1.3 at the turn of the millennium until 2021. But the trend stopped and returned to a meagre 1.4 in early 2024. Today, the number of births keeps breaking negative records, with a natural decline reaching 20,000 in just four months this year.
Prof. Pustułka lists what needs to be done: subsidize infertility treatment including making it possible to freeze eggs (now you have to pay for it), liberalize abortion laws where this has not already happened, facilitate access to contraception, improve prenatal care in public facilities.
Above all, however, thinking about the family must be changed. - We will not turn back the river of social change, the wave of divorce, the worldview gap between men and women," assesses Prof. Pusulka. - It is necessary to break with the model of the heterosexual traditional family as the best for the child, to say to ourselves, "Ok, we are done with the idea of the sacred union of two halves of an apple," and to fight for the appearance of children where possible.
So: allow single-sex couples to have children. Following the example of Sweden, fund egg freezing and IVF for single women who wants to undertake independent motherhood. Take care of patchwork families, i.e. those in which partners live with children from different relationships. Finally, allow - which is very difficult in homogeneous Poland - the idea of migrants as a demographic force. - We need immediate intervention. This should be a political, social and budgetary priority, otherwise we are facing a disaster," prof. Pustułka concludes.
Authors: Natalia Waloch, Gazeta Wyborcza, Michaela Terenzani, SME, János Haász, 444.hu
This article was written in the framework of The Eastern Frontier Initiative (TEFI) project. TEFI is a collaboration of independent publishers from Central and Eastern Europe, to foster common thinking and cooperation on European security issues in the region. The project aims to promote knowledge sharing in the European press and contribute to a more resilient European democracy.
Members of the consortium are 444 (Hungary), Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), SME (Slovakia), PressOne (Romania), and Bellingcat (The Netherlands).
The TEFI project is co-financed by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
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