This article appears in the following Oxford Review of Economic Policy issue: LABOUR MIGRATION IN EUROPE [View the issue table of contents]
Demographic and labour-market impacts of migration on Poland
Kaczmarczyk** Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, e-mail: p.kaczmarczyk{at}uw.edu.pl
** Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, e-mail: moko{at}uw.edu.pl
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Post-2004 labour migration from Poland turned out to be one of the most spectacular migratory movements in contemporary European history. This outflow on a massive scale is surmised to impact on demographic, economic, and social phenomena both in Poland and in the receiving countries. The aim of this paper is to assess the demographic and labour-market impacts of the recent migration of Poles. We argue that selectivity patterns in the post-accession period differ significantly from those noted in the pre-accession phase. Recently, a stronger propensity to migrate is observed among young and relatively well-educated people who, at the same time, originate from economically backward areas characterized by limited employment opportunities. This observation is consistent with our assessment of the labour-market impacts of recent migration from Poland. From the analyses presented it follows that the short- and medium-term impacts of migration on the Polish labour market are moderate. However, as we argue, recent outflow might contribute significantly to a crowding-out of the economy in the long term.
Key Words: migration • EU enlargement • demographic impacts • labour-market impacts
1 Strictly speaking, we have in mind the period since the proclamation of ‘cold war’ in 1948.
2 The register was discontinued in 1990.
3 A ‘permanent resident’ of Poland is someone who has been registered as such at any specific address in Poland.
4 Since 2007 a temporary migrant is a permanent resident who has been continuously absent from Poland for more than 3 months.
5 In the period 2000–7 the average annual number of officially recorded emigrants was 25,000.
6 The Polish LFS seems the most reliable data source available to monitor intertemporal changes in Poles’ mobility. A clear advantage of using LFS data is that the so-called sample stratification has been based on regional division, which makes it possible to estimate some variables at regional level (the NTS2 level) and compare those estimates with the corresponding national data. However, the CSO suggests using it with caution as the LFS data on migration from and into Poland are not fully representative. Additionally, these data pertain only to persons aged 15 and older who, at the time of the survey, had been abroad for longer than 2 months (since 2007—3 months) and who had at least one household member still staying in Poland.
7 However, the institutional framework did not change drastically at the time of EU enlargement. Only three countries—namely Ireland, the United Kingdom and Sweden—opened their labour markets to Polish citizens directly after the EU enlargement. Other EU15 countries took 2 years (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Italy) or 3 years (the Netherlands, Luxembourg) to allow the citizens of newly acceded member countries freedom of mobility. In the remaining few EU countries (including Germany), transitional arrangements are still in force.
8 It should be noted that in 2007 the trend exhibited the first signs of slowing—this tendency is observable when analysing both data from Poland (LFS) as well as from destination countries (WRS).
9 Note that these data refer not to migration per se but rather depict the scale of and trends in mobility, including tourism.
10 This observation seems to be even better founded if we consider that LFS data does not include most seasonal migration from Poland (typically lasting for less than 2 months).
11 Former Yugoslavia should perhaps also be included in these countries.
12 The first attempt at sketching that pattern in the literature was offered by Zelinsky (1971) in his hypothesis of the mobility transition.
13 On the importance or, indeed, inevitability of putting the demographic transition at the core of theories explaining socio-economic structural transformations in contemporary society, see Dyson (2001).
14 Typically, the sector serves as a buffer in case of ‘emergency’, e.g. when a circular worker loses a job, or contracts a disease, or becomes homeless.
15 Already in the 50 years or so that preceded the moment of the 2004 EU enlargement, it had become clear that the intensity of emigration from Poland was very sensitive to the degree of liberalization of the administrative rules that pertained to entry into or exit from the country and entitlements to residence and employment in the foreign country. Of all those rules, however, by far the most important proved to be the right to leave and return to Poland, decided upon by the Polish authorities (Fihel et al., 2007).
16 The analysis is based on two migrant databases extracted from LFS: one includes all the residents of Poland aged 15 or above who, at the time of the survey, had resided in a foreign country for longer than 2 months (hereafter referred to as ‘temporary migrants’), while the other is limited to those temporary migrants whose stay abroad did not exceed 1 year (hereafter, ‘short-term temporary migrants’). The number of migrants in the former database was 6,693; in the latter, 3,700. All migrants in the databases were divided into two groups according to the time of their departure from Poland: more specifically, those who left between the first quarter of 1999 and the first quarter of 2004 (‘pre-accession migrants’), and between the first quarter of 2005 and the fourth quarter of 2006 (‘post-accession migrants’). For analytical reasons, migrants recorded between the second quarter of 2004 and the fourth quarter of 2004 were not included in the databases. The contribution of Marta Mioduszewska (Centre of Migration Research (CMR)) to setting up those databases is gratefully acknowledged.
17 The migrant selectivity index is illustrated by the following formula:
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18 Tertiary education—usually at least 16 years of schooling; post-secondary and secondary completed—at least 12 years of schooling; vocational education—at least 10–11 years of schooling.
19 Official concepts, followed by Poland's statistics, of ‘temporary migrant’ as opposed to ‘emigrant’ are explained in the introductory paragraphs of section II(i) of this paper.
20 The estimate was made by the CSO of Poland on the basis of the 2002 population census, the register of temporary migrants, and quarterly LFS data.
22 Resident population aged 15+ at about the date of Poland's accession to the EU was nearly 31.8m, and we estimate the total loss due to the post-accession migration (15+) at 1.045 m.
23 Owing to a low number of observations, it was not possible to apply more advanced statistical methods.
24 In terms of labour-market characteristics, Polish regions are highly heterogeneous. Thus, it would be necessary to analyse links between labour-market developments and migration on lower levels and this is not feasible owing to data availability.
25 The Pearson coefficient R proved to be strikingly high (0.805) in the case of people in a household that owned an agriculturally cultivated land plot of below 5 hectares, while it was much lower (0.566) in the case of all rural population and some other variables.
26 The outflow of workers should have a negative impact on product, although additional issues such as capital/labour stock or migrants characteristics are to be taken into account.
27 There is a broad literature on the consequences of highly skilled migration on sending countries (Grubel and Scott, 1966; Bhagwati and Hamada, 1974; Stark et al., 1997; Beine et al., 2001; Docquier and Marfouk, 2004; Dumont and Lemaître, 2005). However, studies dealing with CEE countries are relatively rare (Wolburg 1996; Straubhaar and Wolburg, 1999; Radu, 2003).
28 Additionally, based on outcomes for three countries (USA, Canada, and Mexico) authors found that the average wage response to international migration in each of them was similar and equalled a 3–4 per cent opposite-signed change in wages for a 10 per cent change in labour supply.
29 The Polish labour market in the transition period was characterized by serious structural problems, including low levels of human capital, regional professional and educational mismatches, low volume of mobility, etc. These imbalances were among the most important factors responsible for an extremely high unemployment rate, a large share of long-term unemployed, high unemployment among young persons, and very low participation and employment rates.
30 The Pearson correlation coefficient for the period 1999 (fourth quarter) to 2004 (first quarter) equalled 0.80.
31 The Pearson correlation coefficient for the period 2004 (second quarter) to 2007 (second quarter) equalled –0.98.
32 Note that the introduction of the migratory factor into decomposition presented seems possible although rather difficult (in methodological terms). This is due to the fact that migration impacts both on demography and labour-market performance (activity rates), additionally, outcomes would be seriously biased owing to—discussed in previous parts—self-selection mechanisms.
33 A similar pattern was observed in the age group 25–44.
34 A set of multinomial logistic regression models was applied to explain factors influencing migratory behavior on both household and individual level (Kaczmarczyk, 2008).
35 Wages data are presented in real terms.
36 Note also that if we compare the scale of migration (even as massive as it is in the Polish case) and the scale of other labour-market aggregates (employment, unemployment) the most reasonable conclusion appears to be that the outflow of persons cannot influence the situation on the domestic labour market in a very significant way (see also Massey et al., 1999).
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