According to Eurostat, in 2024 the fertility rate was below one child per woman in seven Polish regions. The EU average was 1.34, the lowest since measurements began in 2001.
The data come from the Eurostat regional yearbook 2026 (Eurostat regional yearbook 2026), which presents indicators for regions at the NUTS 3 level. The analysis used data from 1,165 EU regions. The fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime if she followed the fertility patterns of a given year. The level ensuring simple generational replacement is about 2.10.
Seven regions in Poland, over a dozen in Spain
Eurostat reports that values below 1.00 were recorded in 16 regions of Spain, 7 regions of Poland, 5 Italian, 3 Greek, and two each in Germany (data for 2023) and Lithuania. The lowest result in the entire EU was recorded on La Palma island in the Spanish Canary Islands (0.76).
Eurostat does not name the Polish regions in its description. According to a summary by Polsat News, based on Eurostat data, the lowest rates in Poland were recorded in Poznań and the jeleniogórski county (0.93 each), and Wrocław (0.94). Slightly higher were the wałbrzyski county, Warsaw and the sosnowiecki county (0.98 each), and the „trójmiejski county” (0.99). These include both large cities and smaller regions.
Eurostat notes that the lowest rates within a given country often occur in the capital region and in large metropolitan areas. This also applies to regions with a high share of students.
Record-low EU average
The EU average in 2024 was 1.34 children per woman. Over the past two decades it ranged from 1.34 to 1.57. The number of births in the EU fell from 5.1 million in 1990 to 3.6 million in 2024, a decline of 30.2%. In 2024 there were 3.1% fewer births than a year earlier, following declines of 5.1% in 2022 and 5.4% in 2023.
The highest rates were recorded in French overseas regions: Mayotte (3.51) and French Guiana (3.10). Two Bulgarian regions, Sliven (2.58) and Jambol (2.42), also exceeded the replacement level.
Eurostat links low fertility, among other things, to later motherhood. The median age of women giving birth in the EU rose from 31.0 years in 2014 to 31.9 years in 2024. Possible causes it cites include longer education, building a career before starting a family, employment insecurity, and the costs of raising children and housing.
What it means for Poland
The indicators concern 2024 and do not show whether the situation changed in 2025 and 2026. Polsat News cites preliminary data from Statistics Poland (GUS), according to which the fertility rate in the country may stabilise slightly, from about 1.07 to about 1.11. Eurostat does not provide this in the publication discussed. It remains far below the level of 2.10.
In practice, a low rate means fewer people entering the labour market in the future. Eurostat points to the growing demographic burden in the EU. The old-age dependency ratio rose from 63.4% in 2005 to 71.6% at the beginning of 2025. In Poland, as many as 16 regions lost more than 50,000 residents between 2014 and 2024. The effects on the pension and healthcare systems will depend on how long the current trend lasts.
