Old Polish traditions slowly change

[Bonobo]

Poles and marriage
Polish Radio
30.03.2009
Two-thirds of Poles are critical of the fact that more and more children are born out of wedlock, says a new probe carried out by the TNS OBOP researchers.
Half of the population approve that the marriage age is increasing but near on half are not happy that it is nowadays easier to have a church marriage annulled. Poles are also almost exactly divided in their opinions on living together: 47% are critical while 50% don't see a problem.
48% are not happy that couples nowadays have fewer children than in the past but 40% say it is good that a woman has her first child at an older age than her mother.
TNS OBOP researchers say that more positive responses to the changing demographic tendencies were reported in the big cities.

Partners don`t get married on purpose - lonely mothers have many privileges, not only welfare but also easier access to kindergartens. So, it happens that a woman comes to a kindergarten with her partner to enroll their child and officially she is a solitary mother.

[Bonobo]

Poles want children but not marriage
thenews.pl
20.04.2009

Every fifth child in Poland is born out of wedlock, writes Dziennik. There are five times more `illegitimate' children than thirty years ago.

"In the past marriage was synonymous to family. Nowadays a wedding does not imply having children and a child is no longer a reason to get married", says Prof. Miroslawa Marody from the University of Warsaw, commenting that Poland's views on family life have changed. There is a growing number of people living in informal relationships who decide to have a child or married couples who decide not to.

"Nowadays traditional marriage is perceived by many as a restriction" , explains Prof. Krystyna Iglicka-Okolska. "Young people do not want to sign a marriage certificate. They prefer to stay in informal relationships and evolve". It is easier for them, than for their parents, to abandon the idea of getting married because the social pressure is not that strong any more.

The drop in the number of marriages in Poland does not necessarily mean the end of a traditional Polish family, claim sociologists. It is possible that the next generation will return to the traditional family model.

In comparison to the rest of Europe, Poland is still a very traditional country. The latest polls show that, in Great Britain, up to 75 percent of women who had a child before turning 25, did not get married.

[Bonobo]

A fifth of babies in Poland born outside wedlock
16.01.2013 09:06
One in five babies were born out of wedlock in Poland in 2011, according to statistics compiled by the Central Statistical Office (GUS).

With 81,500 (21.2 percent) of babies born outside marriage of the overall 388,400 from 2010, the figures display a significant trend over the last two decades.

In 1990, just 6.2 percent of babies born in Poland were done so out of wedlock.

Speaking with the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily, sociologist Dr Piotr Szukalski noted that attitudes are changing dramatically in Poland.

“More and more young people live together before marriage,” he stressed.

“Such relationships are considered by us to be no worse than marriage,” he argued.

Nevertheless, divorce rates are also on the up in Poland, reflecting a further break with traditional Roman Catholic values.

Over the past few years, there have typically been between 60,000 and 70,000 divorces per year, about 40-65 percent more than 12 years ago. Statistics reveal that many divorced women later have children without remarrying.

According to the last figures released by Eurostat on the subject, some 37.4 percent of babies born across the EU in 2010 were done so outside wedlock.

The lowest ratio was in Greece, where just 6.9 percent were born outside marriage. Meanwhile, in countries such as France, Sweden, Slovenia and Bulgaria, the rate was over 50 percent.