Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland’s ruling conservative nationalist party, complained over the weekend about his country’s low birth rate, which he attributed to excessive alcohol consumption among young women, sparking a barrage of criticism from the opposition and independent media, AFP reports.

In a speech on Saturday in Elka, in the north-east of the country, he said that Poland’s demographics were suffering, among other things, “due to certain attitudes of people, especially women”.

“If the situation persists, when young women drink as much as their peers by the age of 25, then there will be no children. Do not forget that a man, in order to become an alcoholic, must exceed the limit, on average 20 years (…), and the woman is only two years old,” he said.

The doctor told him that he had not been able to cure any woman from alcoholism

Kaczynski stated that he received this information from a doctor who told him that “he has managed to cure a third of his male patients from alcoholism, but not a single female patient.”

He also emphasized that he does not support women having children at a very young age, because “a woman has to mature to be a mother.”

“But if she drinks too much before the age of 25, then, jokingly, in this sense, it does not bode well,” added the leader of the ruling party “Law and Justice” (PiS).

Kaczynski, who is on a tour of the province to mobilize PiS members for parliamentary elections in 2023, raised the issue again on Sunday in Olsztyn, in the northeast of the country.

The birth rate in Catholic Poland has been falling for several years

“I said yesterday that young women compete with men in drinking alcohol. This is objectively harmful. And an honest political leader, if he knows it, should say it because it is a harmful thing,” he said.

According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, Poland’s birth rate has been falling for several years, reaching 1,378 in 2020 (compared to the 2.1 level needed to avoid population decline).

In power since 2015, PiS has tried to remedy the situation, notably by introducing a benefit of more than a hundred euros per child, starting with the second.

According to feminist circles and the opposition, it is not excluded that the strengthening of the law, which strictly limits abortions, including in the case of defects in the development of the embryo, has led to the fact that some women avoid pregnancy.

(article photo: Fotokon |Dreamstime.com)