Polish migration: motives for the mobility, its dynamics and a proposal of sociological reconceptualisation

Abstract

The article recapitulates basic information on contemporary Polish international migrations. First, consecutive waves of migration of the 1980 are presented, followed by later developments of the late 1980s and 1990s of the twentieth century, up to the beginning of the twenty first century being a result of the political consequences of the enlargement of the EU (namely Poland’s joining the Europen Union and the subsequent Schengen agreement in 2004). After that certain ‘push factors’ occurring in Central and Eastern Europe are being described and the term: ‘individual factors’ is introduced. The main goal of the analysis presented in the article was to propose a possible strategy for answering questions regarding different intensiveness of the emigration from Central and Eastern European countries, bearing in mind that the quality of life in individual states – sources of that emigration – were comparable.

In the analysis, available data from the Eurostat, government statistics, and sociological surveys were used.