Poland’s labour minister Jolanta Fedak is urging Poles to have more children and announced a government initiative to create more childcare centre for working parents.

In an interview for the commercial TV news station TVN24, Minister Fedak said that Poland had one of the lowest fertility rates in the EU and that it was time to take advantage of the baby boomers of the 1980s, who are now entering the labour market and setting up families. 

On Tuesday, the government presented a bill which is hoped will encourage setting up more creches and child care centres.

“Investment in children is the best security against old age,” Fedak said.

She also said that the government was working to secure creches for as many as 1.2 million children aged under three years old. Currently only two percent of Polish toddlers are covered by organised child care – the European standard is 30 percent.  

Meanwhile, as the government looks for savings, it also plans to cut the baby subsidy paid to parents on the birth of a child.  (ek)