Why Poles have so pro-emigration attitude?

A one million emigrated to America/Canada, a half million to Australia, a million to UK, and now preparing another million to Germany!

Poland has 40 millions habitants but this millions of emigrants is heavy blow to population in Poland!

I don't get it why is so massive departure to abroad!!
Poland is cohesive nation state without trouble minorities.
Communism is gone 20 years ago.

I mean, I know reason, who has salary in Poland 500 Euro he wants 1500 Euro in abroad and who has 1000 wants 3000 in abroad.

But why this euros is so much important to Poles?
It is not everything in Euros/dollars!!

Life with friends, family, own cultural habit is much more worth than 1000 euros bigger month salary.

Because traveling is fun and staying in the same place gets boring. I love going to places I've never been before.

I don't know what is fun in Australia's desert or Canada's mountain.

And Antwerpen/Edinburgh/Hamburg are nice places but there nobody likes newcomers because they have seen in those newcomers treat for theirs jobs!

are you Croat?

Croatian Diaspora refers to the Croatian communities that have formed outside Croatia. Estimates on its size are only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but (highest) estimates suggest that the Croatian diaspora numbers between a third[1] and a half[2] of the total number of Croats.

you haven't entered the EU yet...

people from poorer countries emigrate to richer countries if there are no jobs in their home country.

Every european nation has great diaspora, and Germans and Italians, and English, and Spaniards and Poles and Croats.

I don't talking about that.

I'm talking about what's mean 'poor country' and what's mean 'rich country'.

Why on your opinion Poland is 'poor country' and Germany 'rich country'?

A large part of the problem lies in the fact that they have little faith in their govt to lower inflation and raise salaries. Some can be downright fatalistic whilst others maintain a slightly pessimistic attitude. Both are enough for them to up sticks and seek out pastures new.

Also, the money is better elsewhere. To the best of my knowledge, Poles can more freely work in Germany as of tomorrow. Germany will likely have braced itself for impact but I think they will have created ample new opportunities and it will be a fairly harmonious set-up.

Exactly.Mind you this is rather important.This means for example that a Pole working abroad can afford to buy a house in Poland in 5 years while if he stays in Poland he will just survive.There are also luxuries that Poles want like good cars etc which they cannot afford by polish salaries.

The British didn't have communism, neither did the Spaniards, the Dutch, he Germans or the Portuguese, and their emigration levels haven't been a whole lot lower.

I don't think there is anything unique in Polish emigration.

And until recently Poles could not travel or work elsewhere without a visa. They now have opportunities their parents dreamed of.


Because when there is no work you can't buy anything. many of my wife's friends are university educated and, until recently, weren't able to find decent paying work. How were they supposed to buy flats, homes, cars etc on lousy wages? Others just couldn't find work in trades they had trained in for a long time. Places like UK allowed them to work and study in a way Poland couldn't give them.

Just imagine that people who had trained for years to do a specialised job having no job. UK could pay them more as a barman than Poland could as a trained professional... or it could give them a job as a trained pro.

El Croata,
Our glorious mother Socialist federal republic of Yugoslavia died, with it died also the socialism and its definitions and the power to define economical terms. Actually to define anything.

I studied law when SFRY was collapsing, and I had to learn two completely different political economies. One professor was progressive, the other was a bloody commie ;) So, I could compare the ideas.

You know who won that battle, the richer, not the poorer ;)

Germany is rich country because of hard disciplinary work and a fair relatively wage distribution.Relatively because there are many skeletons behind that.

That is why I think it is a Hell.

Anyway, maybe I didn't understand croata but he tried to relativize the concepts of rich and poor, or not? That attempt is in accordance with our common socialist tradition.

Rich and poor are based on a consesus.These social contracts were developed in Germany during the last century and late 19th century and now they are iron made I mean they were created through so much bloodshed that anyone willing to challenge them must be ready to pay an equal amount of bloodshed so they are not disputed.

Many of the Poles that left were of the belief that living in Poland was 'do dupy'. Many young folk still lack the maturity to carve out an entrepreneurial life for themselves and live in an idealistic haze. They want to sample sth different but sometimes it is just blind escapism.

Slavs are complicated.Enterpreneuships does not leave many benefits in Poland as foreigners probably have found out.

Working on ideas takes time. You have to bear with it. Like so many in the decadent West, they want instant results. Seeds take a while to reap fruit :)

Its because the money is better elsewhere. its about time the government actually creates NEW jobs and starts paying everybody decent money. If not, then people will continue to leave.

The latest round of protests have come from the police. They are unhappy that the money they give the govt from fines is not being put into pay rises for them. I'd love to see the pay scale and increases of politicians.

True to a point, but is moving to a place where you can actually earn enough to drink and sh@g your life away any worse than sitting in a hovel in a run down village wishing you had a job to buy your next beer?


Yep, when Poland first entered EU the barriers and red tape scared more than a few foreign investors away and pushed the more enterprising Poles abroad where they could put their ideas into practice.

Exactly! The choice is clear to most people :)

In response to the OP......for the same reason next to nobody has a pro-immigration attitude towards Poland. Last I checked, not to many countries are banging down Poland's doors to get in and enjoy the good life in RP.

It is the whole slavic mentality that drives business back from the western point of view.I saw the same in Turkey the muslim mentality is damaging for business.

Euro 2012 might put it on the map a bit more but the attractions are not promoted well enough. Many live on with (semi?)distorted images of how Poland actually is.

I hope EURO 2012 will give Poland a better impression to people around the world. Unfortunately, I don't think Poland will ever be as big of a tourist attraction like France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria and other western European countries. The only famous attractions we have are Krakow and Zakopane, and even that isn't too well known.

Poles are natural born travellers. After all, it was Poles who had discovered America, not Columbus. And even if they hadn`t, Columbus was Polish, anyway.

Could be why there are booming holdiay industries in many Muslim countries.


And Auschwitz!

Yes, I feel the Polish tourist industry really needs to move up a gear. In Warmia-Mazury, the advertising is great but many smaller towns desperately lack facilities for tourism. Even Mikołajki, one of the major tourist towns in Mazury, has almost nothing if you don't have a boat.

I don't like calling Auschwitz a tourist attraction. But the thing is, how many people outside Poland know about Warmia-Mazury? We don't have anything, all we have to offer tourists is Krakow. One of the reasons as to why Western Europeans don't visit the Tatra's is because there is no point. They have the alps, which are bigger, better and more beautiful than the Tatra's. The Tatra's are only popular to the Polish and the Slovaks. krakow, however, is a gem :)

I know what you mean, but with loads of cheese-grinning people posing under the Arbeit macht Frei sign, I'm afraid it has to be considered as one.

Germans know a lot about Warmia-Mazury and there's a small but growing awareness about the lakes and the nature. The trouble is that there is very little else in some areas. Couple that with appalling roads and dilapidated buildings and you can see why many people don't bother.

Gdansk is also pretty popular, of course, being famous for the Solidarity movement.

Polish people run away because Poland is a country occupied by an opressive regime.

What oppressive regime? You have no idea what true oppression is, do you son?