Migracje stałe do Polski w okresie transformacji ustrojowej

Abstract

The end of the 80-ties and the beginning of 90-ties years is the period when new trends occur in the wandering movements of the population in Poland, including considerably higher inflow of foreigners than up to now. For the first time in the post war history of our country we have to do with a considerable selected temporary as well as permanent immigration. Thus Poland has emerged as an attractive country to live and to manage business activity and is able to draw more and more immigrants. While examining the phenomenon of permanent immigration to Poland since 1946 (Fig. l), few phases can be shown. The first is 1946-1960, the second one lasts until 1990 and the third immigration phase is beyond 1990. The subject of our analysis is the third immigration phase after 1990, because from that time markedly increased the inflow of foreigners to Poland. Jointly during the period 1990-1995 over 35.1 thousand persons have settled in Poland (Fig. 1). Analysing the inflow of population from abroad we can say about the permanent escalation of this process. It is indicated by the comparison of the immigration magnitude in following years and by the fact that from 1989 to 1995 the yearly inflow has grown al most four times, from 2.2 thousand to 8.1 thousand persons, respectively. A characteristic feature of the immigration from abroad is the great disproportion in the scale of inflow to towns an villages. Majority of the foreigners proceed to larger centres, therefore in the country this is only a marginal phenomenon. Since 1989 over 30 thousand foreigners have settled in towns, thus this makes 83% of the inflow in this period, while in the country less then 7 thousand. In the structure of the inflow to Poland (1991-1995) al most half of the persons have secondary education (45%), 33% university education and 7%. So almost 85% of the immigrants are persons with secondary or university education (Fig. 2). Of this about 80% of the persons are at productive age, the rest makes of children up to 18 years of age and persons over 60. (Fig. 3). The proportions between the number of men and women are al most equal (55% and 45%, respectively), but according to the origin country some differentiation can be observed (Fig. 4). In the structure of inflow according to countries 65% of the immigrants come from European countries and the former Soviet Union. 3.5% from Northern America and 8.6% jointly from Asia and Africa. The highest number of immigrants come from Germany (24.1 %), from the USA (16.2%) and from the form er Soviet Union (15%). Examining the problem summarily for the last 6 years, from 1990 to 1995, we can notice that the greatest inflow of foreigners was noted in the voivodeships: Warszawa (4.9 thousand), Gdańsk (2.9 thousand), Katowice (2.5 thousand) and Wrocław (2.1 thousand). In the next five voivodeships (Szczecin, Poznań, Opole, Kraków and Łódź) the inflow was for l to 2 thousand persons. Generally these voivodeships are characterised by a high degree of social-economical development and low degree of unemployment. In the shadow of the immigration streams there are such voivodeships as Bielsko-Biała, Chełm, Piotrków Tryb., Sieradz, Leszno and Ciechanów voivodeships. The joint inflow over the period 1990-1995 was 35.1 thousand persons (Fig. 7). Reassuming, we can state, that starting from the 90-ties years the immigration to Poland is continuously growing.