Readership in Poland rising slightly

The National Library has published the latest report on the state of readership in Poland. As little as 42 percent answered positively to the question asked for nearly three decades about reading all or a part of at least one book in the 12 months preceding the survey. respondents. This is the best result in six years. This means an increase of 3 percent per year and by 5 percent on a two-year scale. For now, there are reasons for cautious optimism, albeit to a level indicators from the beginning of the 21st century are still far away (in 2004, readership in Poland was 58 percent).

Reading books is the domain of women. Women read more often than men (51 percent and 33 percent respectively), the group of women who read the most intensively is also larger – 15 percent of them read at least seven books a year (for men this percentage is 7 percent). It is not without significance that women are also dominant among people with higher education. Moreover, among men who do not read, there are clearly more people who have not read books for a long time – 20 percent of them claim that they have never read any books and 60 percent that they did so only while studying at school.

Age is also an important demographic variable. The younger the respondent, the more likely he or she is reading books. The least readers are among the oldest people – 33 percent over 60, and only 22 percent over 70. In the 15-18 age group, there is as many as 76 percent of readers, which is obviously related to studying at school, although it is worth noting that at the same time every fourth person in this group declares that they have not read any books during the year.

Reading books is more often declared by residents of cities with a population of at least half a million (55 percent) and those of 50,000-100,000 inhabitants (56 percent). The smallest number of readers of books is in villages (37 percent) and cities up to 20,000 inhabitants (38 percent). 

(WBJ)