Poland's baby boom ... in UK!

London a better place to bring up kids than Warsaw?: photo - EPA TAL COHEN

Research by Britain's Office for National Statistics has found that the average Polish-born woman in England and Wales has given birth to 2.13 children, while comparative statistics in Poland show the birth-rate at 1.3.

The new study also shows that the rate of childbirth among Polish women in England and Wales - among hundreds of thousands of Poles who have made the UK their home since Poland joined the EU in 2004 - is higher than that of British women (1.9 children).

Polish mothers are currently responsible for around 3 percent of the births in England and Wales.

The statistics follow UK prime minister David Cameron saying that his government aims to change rules on UK child benefits being sent out of the country by mothers whose children are living in Poland and other EU states.

'Security'

Demographer and rector at the Łazarski University in Warsaw, Prof. Krystyna Iglicka says that the increase in willingness to have children in the UK by Polish couples reflects a settled life there, both socially and on the labour market.

The birth rate, "shows a broad sense of security," she told the Rzeczpospolita daily.

With Poland's politicians trying to think up ways of staving off a demographic crisis - the working-age population (15-64 years old) is predicted to fall by 40 percent within the next 50 years, as the population ages. - experts are urging the country to look again at its policies on child care.

Irena E. Kotowska from the Institute of Statistics and Demography says that the UK is a much easier place to bring up kids than Poland - a problem the government in Warsaw needs to address if it wants to lure migrants back to Poland and increase the birth rate there.

"The instability of employment [in Poland], the difficulty in placing your child in a nursery or kindergarten and with little parental support from the state is discouraging couples having children," says Prof. Kotowska. (pg/nh)

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