Population and Demographics

Poland formerly played host to many languages, cultures, and religions. There was a particularly rich Jewish life in Poland prior to the Nazi Holocaust where Poland's Jewish population, estimated at 3 million was mass murdered, with an estimated 300,000 survivors. The outcomes of World War II and the following shift westwards to the area between the Curzon line and the Oder-Neisse line gave Poland an appearance of homogeneity (especially due to the expulsion of Germans after World War II). Today, 96.74% of the population considers itself Polish, 1.23% declared another nationality, whilst 2.03% didn't declare any nationality. The officially recognised ethnic minorities include: Germans (most in the Opole Voivodeship), Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Jews and Belarusians.

The Polish language, a member of the West Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, functions as the official language of Poland. Most Poles adhere to the Roman Catholic faith, 89.8% are Catholic (according to church baptism statistics) with 75% counting as practising Catholics. The rest of the population consists mainly of Eastern Orthodox, Jehovah's Witnesses and various Protestant religious minorities.

In recent years, Poland's population has stopped increasing because of an increase in emigration and a sharp drop in the birth rate. Since Poland's accession to the European Union, a significant number of Polish people have moved to work in West European countries like the UK and Ireland. Some organisations have estimated that 1 million people have left. Poland which suffers heavy unemployment (14.7%) is beginning to have problems with finding highly educated specialists for certain jobs because these were the people that mainly left to the west.

Facts and Figures

• Population: 38,122,000
• Age Structure:
  • 0-14 years: 15.5% (male 3,070,388/female 2,906,121)
  • 15-64 years: 71.1% (male 13,639,012/female 13,761,154)
  • 65 years and over: 13.3% (male 1,964,429/female 3,177,137)
• Median Age:
  • Total: 37.3 years
  • Male: 35.4 years
  • Female: 39.3 years
• Population Growth Rate: -0.046%
• Birth Rate: 9.94 births/1,000 population
• Death Rate: 9.94 deaths/1,000 population
• Net Migration Rate: -0.46 migrant(s)/1,000 population
• Sex Ratio:
  • At birth: 1.06 male(s)/female
  • Under 15 years: 1.057 male(s)/female
  • 15-64 years: 0.991 male(s)/female
  • 65 years and over: 0.618 male(s)/female
  • Total population: 0.941 male(s)/female
• Infant Mortality Rate:
  • Total: 7.07 deaths/1,000 live births
  • Male: 7.8 deaths/1,000 live births
  • Female: 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births
• Life Expectancy at Birth:
  • Total population: 75.19 years
  • Male: 71.18 years
  • Female: 79.44 years
• Total Fertility Rate: 1.26 children born/woman
• HIV/AIDS:
  • Adult prevalence rate: 0.1%
  • People living with HIV/AIDS: 14,000
• Ethnic Groups:
  • Polish 96.7%
  • German 0.4%
  • Belarusian 0.1%
  • Ukrainian 0.1%
  • Other and unspecified 2.7%
• Religions:
  • Roman Catholic 89.8% (about 75% practicing)
  • Eastern Orthodox 1.3%
  • Protestant 0.3%
  • Other 0.3%
  • Unspecified 8.3%
• Languages:
  • Polish 97.8%
  • Other and unspecified 2.2%
• Literacy:
  • Total population: 99.8%
  • Male: 99.8%
  • Female: 99.7%