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People
Demography
Today, ethnic Poles comprise almost 98 percent of Poland's estimated total population of more than 38 million. Other resident ethnic groups include Germans, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians.
Polish is the official language. Very little incidence of language usage other than Polish has been recorded, although there is some suggestion that small pockets of the population speak Byelorussian, German and Ukrainian. The Polish language belongs to the Indo-European language family and shares many similar traits with the Slavic category of languages.
In terms of religious affiliation, 95 percent are Roman Catholic; the remaining five percent are Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, or other religions.
Human Development
According to recent estimates, Poles have an average life expectancy at birth of 73.06 years (68.93 years for males, 77.41 years for females). The infant mortality rate is 12.76 deaths per 1,000 live births. An estimated 99 percent of the population, age 15 and older, can read and write. About 4.9 percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 7.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally excellent.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a ranking of 169 countries, the HDI places Poland in the very high human development category, at 41st place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.
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