- An uproar has followed Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s ruling party leader, saying that Poland’s low birth rate is linked to young women drinking too much alcohol
- Women’s groups, opposition politicians, activists and celebrities have accused Kaczynski of being out of touch
- Meanwhile, a women’s rights group condemned Kaczynski’s comment and urged people to protest in front of Kaczynski’s Warsaw home on Nov. 28
WARSAW, Poland: An uproar has followed Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s ruling party leader, saying that Poland’s low birth rate is linked to young women drinking too much alcohol.
Women’s groups, opposition politicians, activists and celebrities have accused Kaczynski of being out of touch.
Meanwhile, a women’s rights group condemned Kaczynski’s comment and urged people to protest in front of Kaczynski’s Warsaw home on Nov. 28, the 104th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in Poland.
The group said there were many reasons for the country’s low birthrate, including Poland’s de facto prohibition of abortion, a lack of access to sexual education and in vitro procedures, inflation, a housing shortage and a lack of access to day care centers.
Kaczynski, leader of the populist ruling party, Law and Justice, spoke last weekend about the demographic challenges of “far too few children” being born, as he rallied support for his party ahead of next year’s parliamentary election.
“And here it is sometimes necessary to say a little openly some bitter things. If, for example, the situation remains such that, until the age of 25, girls, young women, drink the same amount as their peers, there will be no children,” Kaczynski said.
He claimed that to develop alcoholism, the average man “has to drink excessively for 20 years” but “a woman only two.”
“I am really a sincere supporter of women’s equality, but I am not a supporter of women pretending to be men, and men pretending to be women,” Kaczynski said.
Poland’s birthrate stood at 1.32 children per woman in 2021, according to Polish state statistics.
