The thermodynamics of the equilibrium polymerization model (grand-canonical ensemble of self-avoiding walks) in two dimensions is worked out by means of the Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization-group technique. This method involves renormalization-group flows in an eight-dimensional parameter space. At the critical point the number of relevant fields (positive exponents) is four. The leading exponent value differs by less than 1% from the (presumed) exact value. The results are exact for the polymerization problem defined on the diamond hierarchical lattice. Some results are peculiar to this lattice and are not expected to hold for Bravais lattices. For instance, the polymerized phase (infinite polymerization index) is dilute (zero density of chemical bonds).