Immigration and the Transformation of Social Protection in Poland

The aim of the paper is to present access to social protection of based on the existing EU legislation as well as the existing bilateral agreements between Poland and non-EU countries. Poland is traditionally an “emigration country”. The available data indicates that the migration patterns in Poland changed significantly after the EU accession. While in the course of the 1990s, after economic transition, the international mobility of Poles declined, it accelerated after the EU accession in May 2004. As underlined by Kaczmarczyk and Okólski (2008a), the “increase in the spatial mobility of Poles was anticipated but the actual scale and dynamic of Polish migration is perceived as spectacular and largely unexpected.” The estimated number of Poles living abroad at the end of 2015 was 2.38 million (3.3 % more than a year before). The majority of migrants were living in the EU Member States, including 720 000 people in the UK and 655 000 in Germany. More than 100 000 Poles also lived in the Netherlands and the UK. The large scale of migrations also led to the labour market shortages in Poland. In recent year, Poland observed a high inflow of migrant workers. According to the estimates, there are around 1 million Ukrainian citizens working in Poland. The large scale of both emigration and immigration observed in Poland means that there is a rising need to provide sufficient social protection, both for Polish migrants working abroad, but also to the immigrants coming to Poland.