Polish migrants: integration
strategies and settlement plans
Anne White, University of Bath
Poster from Newcastle
Polish Saturday School
www.szkola.nepco.org.uk
Deciding to settle abroad
Families with schoolage children
Other couples/single
people
Majority seem to be
settling gradually
(despite frequent
discussions within
families about
when/whether to
return)
Sometimes return to
Poland, fail to reintegrate and decide
‘definitely’ to re-settle
in the West: become
double return migrants
Livelihood strategy approach
Why do individuals/families choose certain
livelihoods from among the range of
possibilities they perceive to be available to
them in their local area?
How much agency do they actually enjoy: can
they formulate ‘strategies’?
The research projects
(both with interviews in Poland and UK)
Polish Families and Migration since EU
Accession (Bristol: Policy Press, 2011)
2006-9. 102 interviewees – all working-class mothers included 19 return migrants. Own opinion poll in SE Poland.
‘Polish Double Return Migration’
2010-2. 32 interviews, 50:50 f/m, different ages, backgrounds.
On-going ethnographic research
Teaching English to Poles in Bath since 2007
Why do Polish families
move to the UK?
How do they decide how
long to stay?
How are thoughts about
return shaped by
experiences of integration
and opportunities for
transnational practices?
Why do Polish families move to the
UK?
In other words, why is whole family migration
preferred to migration by just one parent?
Solo parent migration – often for years on end - was
the norm 1989-2004, and remains common even
today.
This type of migration implies very little integration
into the receiving society. Strategy = ‘earn abroad,
spend at home’.
However, since 2004, an increasing number of
families have begun to break this norm.
Migration with children increasingly seems both
feasible and better for the whole family.
‘So off he went [to the UK], and after about four
months, six at most, not longer than six months, his
wife followed after. Everyone in the village thought
they were mad, that they simply wouldn’t be able to
cope, after all, she wouldn’t be working and they had
two small children… They reproached them and said
that he should have gone on his own, or perhaps she
could have left the children with the grandmother.’
Krystyna, Grajewo
• ‘When we first came [to Bristol in 2005] there were
really very few children, when we went to church you
very rarely saw a child, and as for four children all at
once! Some people couldn’t understand how a family
like that could migrate’
Barbara, Bristol
‘It's frightening to move with children to another
country and I find it hard to understand parents who
decide to do this’ (% agreeing)
50
%
40
30
20
10
0
18-24
25-34
35-49
50-59
60-91
age
Own opinion poll, Podkarpacie, 2008
‘It’s better for children … to go abroad with both
parents, rather than staying in Poland without
one parent’
a) children under 12
b) teenagers
agree
87.5
no opinion
6.5
disagree
7.9
agree
78.1
no opinion
9.5
disagree
12.3
9
‘In my locality you can notice certain problems
connected with parental migration’
a) more broken families
b) children left in Poland
have psychological and
behavioural problems
agree
60.8
no opinion
12.6
disagree
27.4
agree
68.6
no opinion
13.9
disagree
17.5
10
How do families decide how long to stay
abroad?
Migration by whole families/family reunification
tends to lead to settlement abroad (among migrants
of all nationalities) but often this settlement isn’t
really planned in advance
Among post-2004 Polish migrants, family migration
often has an experimental quality
The outcome of the experiment hinges on
experiences of integration, transnational activities
and (temporary) returns
Trans-national/
local practices
Integration process
Thoughts about return
Integration-transnationalism-return
dynamics within families:
vicious/virtuous integration circles
Sometimes both parents feel increasingly
discouraged and separated from UK society, while
the children have British friends and speak with
increasing confidence
Typically, however, the spouse who is stronger in
English and/or has the stronger personality
integrates faster, and this can make the other spouse
more isolated, more assertively Polish and keener to
return (see example of Monika v. Piotr on next slide)
A typically contrasting couple (only one of
whom has a ‘strategy’)
•
•
•
•
Anne: Do you buy Polish food?
Monika: Mostly not.
Piotr: We buy Polish meat.
Monika: It depends. If it’s
macaroni, or tomato puree, or
jams, then more often English.
Milk is milk.
• Piotr: Polish food is nicer.
Perhaps English people don’t like
it, but I’ve heard that English
people buy Polish sausages and
cake.
• Monika: Sometimes we like to try
something different, too…….
• Anne: So do you think you might
stay here? I know it’s a hard
question to answer. [Laughter all
round]
• Monika: I don’t know, I really
don’t know. For the moment.
• Piotr: We intend to go back
sometime.
• Monika: It also depends on what
the children decide to do…
• Piotr: We intend to be here
fifteen years [until their youngest
child finished school].
• Monika: We ‘intend’, but! ‘But’,
there’s always a ‘but’.
Integration of some kinds is facilitated
by transnational practices
• Polish friendship networks in the UK
and inviting relatives to the UK make
extended stays abroad more tolerable
• Polish community organisations often
deliberately try to build bridges into
the receiving society
• Fairly frequent visits to Poland offer contrasts
to life in the UK and help consolidate feelings
that ‘home’ is in the UK
Integration is partly determined by opportunities in the
UK, most importantly the (non)-availability of suitable
language classes, and also by attitudes brought from
Poland
Security of employment is especially prized:
integration into the labour market is often identified
with employment in public sector/big company
Families put down roots in a specific locality
and can be reluctant to migrate internally
within the UK (as they were within Poland).
However, some UK localities are perceived as more
family-friendly than others.
Poles are often very pessimistic about economic
prospects in their specific places of origin in Poland.
Polish return migration: myths and
statistics (in 1000s)
Migrants from Poland to UK (purple) and UK to Poland (yellow)
Intending to stay at least one year
Source: Warsaw University Centre of Migration Research, Biuletyn Migracyjny,
December 2011, based on ONS data
Return motives and consequences
(Polish survey data)
‘Positive changes in Poland’ the least frequent reason for
return (1.4%) (Kierunek Malopolska, p. 96)
By contrast, return is predominantly for emotional reasons or
because enough money has been accumulated abroad for a
particular project
Unemployment is higher among returnees than among the
general population
Most Polish returnees are prepared to
consider or are actively planning another trip
abroad
My interview data: who does ‘settle’ in
Poland?
Overwhelming importance of family ties
Although big cities (only) offer opportunities
to young graduates, even people doing
interesting and by Polish standards well-paid
jobs are tempted to leave Poland again if they
don’t have partners/children
Almost everyone complains about working
conditions and salaries in Poland
Why do ‘double returnees’ feel a need
to settle and pursue more active
integration strategies when they go
back abroad?
Emotional reaction: strong sense of
disillusionment with Poland
Desire for ‘stabilisation’ – especially among
certain age groups/people at particular life
stages
Feeling that they need to take more control
over their own lives cf. drift on first trip to UK
Post-2004 20-somethings now want to settle
‘One thing I learned from moving back from Ireland
to Poland is that now I really want to stay in one
place… This time I know that if I stay I take this
decision I want to settle down. So I will not be
leaving after another four years. I will not make a
decision to move back to Poland or somewhere
else.’ Sara, interviewed in Warsaw, on brink of returning to Ireland
‘If I leave now, that’s going to be for good… I’m 30
now – I want to settle down somewhere and I don’t
think Poland is the place.’
Adam, interviewed in Poznań, had returned from Ireland, hoping to move
to New Zealand
Parents of small children cannot keep
taking them back and forward
‘Definitely we’ll be in Bristol for a long, long
time because, after all, children can’t keep
chopping and changing … ‘
Joanna, after her failed return to Poland
Abandoning some types of transnational practice in order to
enhance ease of settlement in the UK
Interviewees on first stay in UK
Transnationalism
speak Polish at home, celebrate festivals
regular communication with family in Poland
Interviewees after return to UK
Transnationalism
speak Polish at home, celebrate festivals
regular communication with family in Poland
save UK earnings
purchase/build property in Poland
often return to Poland
Bridge-burning
spend UK earnings
sell property in Poland
don’t return much to Poland, instead invite
relatives to visit or live in UK
migrant-sector employment
watch Polish TV
Integration
integrated into regular labour market
watch English-language TV
aspire to buy housing in UK
etc.
Preferring to stop ‘feeling’
transnational
‘The first time we came we completely vegetated.
We were only saving up money, thinking about going
back to Poland, it was simply like we were wearing
blinkers, Poland, Poland, Poland… Now we live quite
differently. For the first time I feel I can breathe, we
can plan outings, it’s completely different… Now our
thoughts aren’t centred on Poland, we’re living here
in England’
Ewa, Bath
Judyta: Before, we weren’t completely sure
whether we wanted to be here [Bristol], or
there. We didn’t invest in life here.
Dariusz: We just wanted to get through the
time. But now we’re here long term, 30 years
for a mortgage, Nicola needs to get her
education.
Judyta: We’re sure that we’re here, and not in
Poland.
Conclusions
• Many families are abandoning the strategy of solo
parent migration to the West in favour of setting up
households in the UK
• However, in the UK the families interviewed often
lacked a single family strategy and family members
were integrating differently
• Many interviewees were rather pessimistic about
their integration prospects, contrasting themselves
with husbands or children
 Migrants who experiment with return to Poland
often come back to the West
 This can galvanise them into pursuing more active
integration strategies
Sources for statistics on potential for return abroad
•
Frelak, J. and Roguska, B. (2008) ‘Powroty do Polski: Wyniki badań’. Warsaw: ISP
http://www.isp org.pl/files/6427608760871582001209562869.pdf
•
Iglicka, K. (2010) Powroty Polaków po 2004 roku: w pętli pułapki migracji. Warsaw: Scholar.
•
Kierunek Małopolska: Powroty z migracji zagranicznych do Małopolski. Skala zjawiska,
charakterystyka oraz potencjał powracających (2010). Kraków: Centrum Doradztwa
Strategicznego.
http://www.cds.Kraków.pl/zalaczniki/184/Raport_%20Powroty%20z%20migracji...pdf.
•
Migracja powrotna w województwie dolnośląskim – skala zjawiska, potencjał oraz
pogłębiona charakterystyka powracających (2010). Kraków: Centrum Doradztwa
Strategicznego. http://www.cds.Kraków.pl/zalaczniki/179/Raport%20KDS.pdf.
•
Szymańska, J., Ulasiński, C. and Bieńkowska, D. (2012) Zaraz wracam... albo i nie. Skala
powrotów, motywacje i strategie życiowe reemigrantów z województwa śląskiego. Kraków:
Centrum Doradztwa Strategicznego.