Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, speaking at a Left (Lewica) event in Kazimierz Dolny, eastern Poland, on Sunday, said the idea amounted to punishing women who cannot have children with a longer working life, rather than helping them through measures such as state-funded IVF.
She called having children a private family matter.
"As long as the Left is in government, we will not raise the retirement age – not for women, not for men," she said, adding this applied regardless of whether people were parents.
She said the only acceptable debate on retirement age was over lowering it to 60 for both sexes, or making it easier for people to keep working voluntarily past retirement age, including through reduced hours on full pay.
The comments follow a recent proposal from Regional Development Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz to equalise the retirement age for men and women while linking women's eligibility to whether they had given birth.
Poland's current retirement age is 60 for women and 65 for men.
Poland's statistics office (GUS) projects the median age could exceed 50 by 2060 – around seven years higher than in 2024 – meaning half the population would be over 50.
The UN forecasts Poland's population will shrink to roughly 19 million by 2100.
(ał)
Source: PAP