Poland's births up by 7 percent: family ministry
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
30.08.2017 12:30
Poland saw a 7-percent rise in the number of births in June compared to the same month last year, in a success for the government’s child benefit programme, Family Minister Elżbieta Rafalska has said.
Photo: jarmoluk/pixabay.com/CC0 Creative Commons
The government’s flagship 500+ programme of giving parents handouts of PLN 500 (EUR 117) per child a month “is working well,” boosting the country’s birth rate, Rafalska said on Wednesday.
She added that a total of 200,100 children were born in Poland in the first half of 2017, more than a year earlier.
“There is still a chance we break the magical barrier of 400,000 births this year,” she said.
Under the 500+ programme, families receive a monthly handout of PLN 500 for each second and next-born child, and low-income families also receive benefits for their first-born children.
The programme, which is primarily aimed at counteracting Poland’s demographic problems, was a key pledge by the Law and Justice (PiS) party ahead of its victory in the country’s general election in late 2015.
Some 2.5 million families with a total of 3.8 million children benefit from the programme. (tf/str)