Comments on: People wanted more children in 2000s, but had fewer

By: Tomasz R.

Tomasz R. — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:44:26 +0000

Data from 2007 shows that “Research conducted by PKO Bank Polski, Poland’s largest retail bank, shows that 63% of Polish immigrants to the UK are aged between 24 and 35 with 40% possessing a university degree.” Newest data shows that “About 85% of ‘British’ Poles are employed, however many of them work in positions disproportionate to their tertiary education gained back in Poland.”.

This is not necessairly a job degeneration for them since in Poland many people work on positions lower than their talents and education anyway, since there’s less technology & science jobs and spendings per capita than in more developed countries. Same with some other intellectual or creative sectors – book writing, film making, music etc.

From a personal knowledge we also know that UK got many welfare seekers, who went there to get the benefits. In Poland the welfare benefits are given, but they are too low to survive on them. Also many criminals dissapeared from Poland suspiciously coinciding with the dates when the borders become open.

By: JG

JG — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 03:19:31 +0000

@ Tomasz R.

What kind of Polish women tend to migrate to the UK? Educated, skilled, professional types? Or unskilled labor, nannies, etc.?

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:35:54 +0000

Mike scores!

In Africa, letting little girls go to school is emerging as the best hope for controlling population growth.

By: Mike the Mad Biologist

Mike the Mad Biologist — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:59:15 +0000

Any idea how this breaks down by gender? It seems women’s attitudes are critical here.

By: Tomasz R.

Tomasz R. — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 12:02:47 +0000

@David – additional interesting data: In 2010 in Poland polish women have TFR of 1.4, while those who migrated to the UK have TFR of 2.5.

The factors may be: higher affluence in the UK, including reasonable prices of homes, combined with child-friendly culture.

On polish villages there’s a pro-high-child-number culture, large homes but the avg. wealth is low. In polish towns there is some anti-high-child-number culture, especially in the rich cities, apartments are extremaly overpriced compared to salaries (the bubble hasn’t burst yet), and some (not all) employers discriminate against women at reproductive age or those who are pregnant. The culture of working + raising a child is strong: communists required women to work, and before communism most people were farmers so women worked too.

High number of children (>=4) is usually associated with either being a strong religious believer, or living in or coming from a traditional village family.

By: David

David — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 05:42:59 +0000

Interestingly, it looked like in the 70′s, income mattered more than education, and fertility was positively correlated with income. I’d love to see the data further back. Were rich whites always more fecund before the 80′s? I’m aware of Gregory Clark’s work in which he found that the high fertility of England’s rich people in the industrial revolution led to significant downward mobility. Did we have this in the US as well?