The level of socio-economic development and the migration attractiveness of the counties of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the counties of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship in terms of their level of economic and social development, and to examine the extent to which this is related to the net migration balance. The level of socio-economic development of a region is determined by job availability, prospects for higher wages, housing conditions, availability of healthcare services, cultural and entertainment options, access to green spaces and recreation areas. In the presented study, these interconnected and interdependent areas were described using 18 diagnostic variables. Applying factor analysis allowed us to reduce this set of variables to four common factors describing the level of the development of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship counties. These factors, which account for nearly 77% of the total variance of the input variables, reflect the following dimensions: economy, infrastructure, and housing conditions; cultural and entertainment options and access to green spaces; labour market situation; and public safety level. The most developed counties were: cities with county status (Poznań, Leszno, Kalisz and Konin) and the counties: nowotomyski, pilski, gnieźnieński and śremski. On the other hand, the highest net migration figures are recorded in the counties: poznański and leszczyński which surround the two cities with the highest level of socio-economic development. It indicates the presence of strong suburbanisation processes. In the final stage of the study, the counties were grouped based on their level of socio-economic development measured by four common factors and net migration. Four clusters of similar counties were identified using the k-means method. Analysis of the clustering results, particularly the mean values of variables within clusters, led to the conclusion that the common factors of attractiveness moderately reflect the reasons for population movement. The lack of a correlation between common development factors and net migration suggests that a higher level of development in a county does not translate into greater migration attractiveness; furthermore, counties are not similar to one another in terms of these two characteristics. It therefore appears that Poland remains a country where people are reluctant to move house in order to find a better job or improve their housing conditions in a distant location. Migration decisions are presumably most often made for reasons other than the desire to improve living conditions.