ABSTRACT
This chapter examines major findings that stem from the analysis of social and demographic characteristics of permanent and temporary migration from Poland during the post-war period. European East-West migration, a phenomenon neglected in the past by researchers and policy makers, has become a controversial and extremely important topic for the international community. In the 1980s, emigration became the domain of young and very young cohorts, for the most part urban and well educated. On the basis of the official statistical data, the geography of migration seems to be the sole significant similarity in emigration from Poland before and during the transition period. Since 1989, the “Central European” part of the system has been connected with the Western European migration system through bilateral fluxes of people. The future of emigration to Germany depends mainly on the economic situation of Poland. The outflow from Poland in the 1990s coincided with the liberalisation of Polish state migration policy.
