Immigration in Poland and being surrounded by a monoculture?

I suppose it's the same in every country. Following on :


Yes, it is a very nice idea - it would reward those with education that chose a vocational career (such as nurses and teachers) too. It would reward education (no bad thing) and if combined with rigorous checking of institutions awarding degrees, would be a reliable way of rewarding people. Probably it wouldn't be perfect, but it makes far more sense than the current situation where people are encouraged to breed by governmental handouts.


This is the problem with most of the "pro-family" policies - they aren't helping the most able ones, but rather than ones that aren't able. For instance - you get 95% off tram tickets for having 4+ children in Poznan. But the vast majority of well educated, stable families don't have such amounts of children - so you just end up subsidising 'pathological' families as a result.


Don't worry, I understand your cynicism - the horror that is a lot of teacher 'training' leaves a lot to be desired.


I don't think he does, it's just the general attitude in Poland that the customer is there to serve the business and not the other way round.

For what it's worth, I've found that good people in Poland will be very loyal and professional, more much so than in the UK.

Well, you brought it up, so why are you asking me to back up your claim? You should back up your claim with something. Anything...

I will argue against your claim (regardless of what I actually believe), and say that increasing income as a result of increased opportunity (especially for women) leads to a DECREASE in the number of children per household, and I will back up my claim with actual examples of research done on this subject in different parts of the world. Please see below not 1 or 2 example, but TEN examples that support my point:

1. Ehrlich and Kim 2007 (International): 1% increase in GDP per capita was found to decrease fertility by 0.17-0.31%.
2. Heckman and Walker 1990 (Sweden): 1% increase in female wages leads to 0.55% decrease in the number of children at the age of 40.
3. Merrigan and St.-Pierre 1998 (Canada): 12.% increase in female wages leads to 6.5-15.6% decrease in number of children at the age of 40.
4. Butz and Ward 1979 (USA): 1% increase in female hourly wages leads to 1.59-1.85 decrease in total fertility rate.
5. Kackson 1995 (Australia): 1% increase in female hourly wages leads to 1.45% decrease in total fertility rate.
6. McNown and Ridao and Cristobal 2004 (Canada): 1% increase in female wages leads to 2.7% drop in total fertility rate.
7. Ronsen 2004 (Norway and Finland): Women's wages were found to have a negative and significant effect on the probability of having a first and a second child.

8. Risse 2006 (Australia): Women's wages were found to have a negative and significant effect on the probability of having fallen pregnant in the previous year.

9. Barmby and Sigano 1990 (UK): Increasing women's wages relative to men has a negative impact on fertility.
10. Ermisch 1998 (UK): 35% increase in women's wages relative to men leads to a reduction in family size of 0.3 children.

Well I didn't make any claims contrary to your little research project so you're arguing against your own projections based on very few things I wrote.

You seem to want some attention but I have no time to give you at the moment but one BIG problem with your research is that it all seems centered on either G20 countries or countries in which people ALREADY enjoy a high-standard of living.

Try looking at it from that direction.

m2s
To the OP: why did you and many million educated young Poles decide to leave Poland??
You may find that the answer lies in your reasons to leave Poland.
Monoculture, as i understand it here on this forum, means either people of mixed race or non caucasian.
As long as people are allowed to live in countries they choose to- there will always be "monoculture"
As for economic refugees flooding Poland- I'm sure you know very well, wherever u're in the world right now, that it will not happen.

Poland is a country that has benefited from emigration and there will never be more coming in than there are going out.
One good statistic is that the government of Poland does not even know how many of its citizens live in Chicago and the UK in total.

They can only give an estimation. But judging by the fact that almost every street in Poland has a person or people that have left for Chicago, Germany or UK- there

are many families that have been split up by economic migration.

I see your point, and I think this is where government involvement is so often off-target.
The less government is involved with people's private or family lives, the better imo. But they're so into it now that they have to try and repair the damage they've done. Of course they won't actually go tackle the problems of corruption and waste and lack of opportunity which have led to people being disenfranchised with their home country. Noooooo, they can't do that, instead they dole out little band-aid solutions that don't actually deal with the underlying issues.

...and then we argue about which ineffective solution is the least ineffective; )


Just to make sure we're on the same page, so to speak, I brought what up exactly?


Just to be sure, what claim do you think I'm making and how does a general rise in the earnings of women in Australia, Scandinavia, Canada and the UK in any way undermine that?

Where did I make projections and then argue against them?

You said that there is no need for immigration but instead there should be fair opportunities at home (in order to encourage people to have more children). Unless you were talking about something else, out of context, and didn't clarify.


I asked you for examples, you asked ME to provide examples instead to a point that YOU had proposed.

Speaking of


These are countries where people have some of the lowest birthrates in the world, which further proves that simply better economic conditions are not likely to increase the birth rates.

Examples (Source: UN 2009)
Germany 1.41
Canada 1.53
Brazil 1.74
UK 1.82
Norway 1.85
France 1.89
US 2.05

As you see above, none of these countries enjoy a birth rates high enough to sustain the population and growth without resorting to brining in immigrants to fill the gap.

Birth rate in Poland: 1.23-1.38 depending on the source. This is FAR below the 2.1 necessary to sustain the population. Changes in policy will take decades to impact birthrates, and even then, I cannot imagine what sort of policy change can bring on a sufficient improvement in birthrates to bring it from 1.38 to 2.1.

P.S. I need a lot of things in life. Your attention is most certainly not one of them.

I'll let you figure that one out.


No, you seem a bit confused. Here's what I wrote:


This is what you wrote:



No, I asked you to be creative and try to get in on the conversation....you obviously have taken some sort of offense to that.


No, I would say that's a poor conclusion to draw from such limited data. Moreover, I did not state that simply better economic conditions are likely to increase birth rates. I never said that so this is one of those projections I referred to earlier. It looks more and more as though you read something I wrote, came to some ill-founded conclusions and want me to argue with you from a position you've defined for me. Sorry but you're off-base on this.


Most of those societies DON'T need to expand their populations so I think you should take that into consideration when reaching your conclusions.
Again, I have to be sure here, what claim do you think I'm making and how does a general rise in the earnings of women in Australia, Scandinavia, Canada and the UK in any way undermine that?

Delphi and I have had a nice conversation sharing ideas even though we first disagreed (and likely still do) on a couple things. It's not too late for you to join us.

One thing you have to be careful of when touting your data is how incomplete it is. Any increase in wage must be compared to inflation and buying power in that society.

In the cases of Canada, U.S., U.K. and Germany people may make more than 30 years ago but how many families in those countries can survive on one person's income and afford a home compared to that same time gap?

Foreigner;

I am all for good debate. But you said to someone that they are wrong (offering no reason) and expressed a different opinion (without supporting it). All I did was to ask you why you thought they were wrong, and to provide examples... It seemed like you took offense to that. In my last reply, I said to sustain population, not to expand it.

Let's say there is a misunderstanding here and start again.

What do you actually think of this subject?

I think you'll see delphi and I have done that...whether or not you agree with them is a different thing.
Looking at what events have led to baby booms in countries may also lead to other ideas.
I guess I'm just tired of the line trotted out that immigration will cure all a nation's future population woes. What happens when those people become stable and the numbers start going down again? Then what, just keep the gates open indefinitely?

Eventually we've got to manage ourselves better and managing our population levels more intelligently is overdue imo.

There are no perfect solutions, that's for sure. Every solution comes with compromises.

Some countries count on their ability to recruit skilled migrant workers (like the US or Canada) and this has practically become an essential part of their economic and social development.

Would this work for Poland? Hard to say. Poland's economy is growing, and the demand for skilled workers will increase with time. I have been trying to recruit a mechanical engineer (fresh graduate) for MONTHS. I am offering a very good salary for a fresh grad... The first person I gave an offer to, accepted an offer from a UK based company for about 40% less net income because it is a huge well known company, and the second guy decided to go spend a year in India to "find himself" instead of finding a job. Currently, I gave up on recruiting for my vacancy. Believe me, this did not come out of nothing. Perhaps trying to attract some of the foreign graduates of Polish universities wouldn't be such a bad idea - at some point in time and using appropriate selection criteria.

Why does a population have to grow constantly? That's like cancer. The number of people in a country doesn't automatically translate into more wealth. Jobs are disappearing everywhere and workers are replaced by machines and software. We don't need so many people.

I agree and if you look, I am on the same page as you on that one.

Yeah, sorry. Simply overlooked it.

Doner kebab