ABSTRACT
Post-accession migration from Poland has gained prominence in the media and in research during recent years. Researchers have pointed to the strong involvement of young and highly educated migrants in this most recent wave of migration from Poland (Kaczmarczyk & Okólski 2008). While we already know a lot about the labour market outcomes of Poles in the United Kingdom (see, e.g., Drinkwater, Eade & Garapich 2006), post-accession return migration and labour market outcomes of returnees remain blind spots. This is even more true with regard to educational migration and returns from studies abroad. According to UNESCO (2008: table 10), 30,808 Polish students are studying abroad. Forty-three per cent of them chose Germany as their study abroad destination. Throughout the 1990s, educational migration from Poland to Germany saw a steady increase. The numbers of Polish students peaked at 12,301 in winter term 2005–2006 (StBA 2008). In quantitative terms, Polish students still represent the second most important group of international students in Germany. Studying the outcomes of German-Polish educational migration could thus provide insight into a segment of high-skilled migration that has been largely ignored in migration studies, despite indications that it is the young and highly qualified who characterise Poland’s migration.
