Introduction

Poland is usually perceived and described as a typical country of emigration. International migration does in fact play a significant role in the contemporary history of Poland and in the process of its socioeconomic development. However, until the late 1990s migration-related issues were almost absent in public debate with a few exceptions, such as post-1968 migration resulting from the anti-Zionist campaign, migration of ‘ethnic Germans’ in the 1950s and 1970s or politically driven migration in the 1980s. The debate on the causes and consequences of migration started yet again prior to Poland's accession to the European Union as part of a general discussion on the potential consequences of the accession of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to the EU, and then continued due to the spectacular increase in the scale of the mobility of Poles in the post-accession period. Paradoxically, in contrast to migration debates prior to EU enlargement, when numerous hazards were voiced as to what would be the impact of the expected inflow of people on EU residents, in current debate, the issue of the consequences of outflow for Polish economy and society plays the most prominent role. Commonly expressed threats include labour shortages on the Polish market and, particularly, the so-called brain drain that is understood as outflow of highly skilled persons.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the scale and structure of mobility of the highly skilled in the broader context of recent trends in international migration from Poland. Emphasis will be put on such issues as the question to what extent migration of professionals is a statistically significant phenomenon and the real and possible consequences of recent outflows for the Polish economy and society. The structure of the chapter is as follows: section two looks at the general trends in migration behaviour in the pre- and post-accession periods. Against this background, section three analyses the phenomenon of the mobility of the highly skilled. Section four includes an attempt to assess the impact of recent migration of professionals on the Polish economy and society. Section five concludes.