Impact of selected socio-economic factors on migration patterns in Poland

Abstract

This paper identifies the impact of socio-economic development on migrations in Poland. It analyses the influence the development exerts on population’s migrations within the country. In addition, counties were ranked by their socio-economic development on the basis of such criteria as: the average investment in enterprises in PLN per capita, the average number of newly registered business entities per 1,000 inhabitants, a percentage growth in the number of apartments in 2010 against 2005, a monthly gross salary against the national average salary 2005–2010 and the average unemployment rate, from 2005–2010. Averaged data for poviats (administrative region of the 2nd order) reported for 2005 to 2010 were used to eliminate any short-term fluctuations of the economic condition which could come as a result of large investment projects or bankruptcies of enterprises; these could have caused an abrupt rise in unemployment. In consequence, they could trigger a momentary swift in ratios, disfiguring the end result. Next, a typology of poviats followed based on their socio-economic advancement and here the results were confronted with the net population migration index calculated for the analysed period. The typologies closing the paper present the interdependencies of the socio-economic development and movement of people. It was proven that the socio-economic development and its advancement is a factor which influences migrations of population in Poland. A division between a more developed western part of the country and considerably less developed eastern part of the country is showing. Furthermore, the largest cities and their outskirts have the highest economic potential.