Only 15% of immigrants in Poland from outside the European Union are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to new EU data. The figure is the second lowest among all member states, and well below the level of 45% for non-EU immigrants across the whole bloc.
The data from Eurostat looks at the risk of poverty as well as of social exclusion – defined as those severely materially deprived or living in households with very low work intensity – faced by people aged between 20 and 64 in 2019.
In Poland, 15.3% of non-EU citizens were classified as being at risk, a drop of three percentage points on the previous year. However, whereas in 2018 Poland had had the lowest figure for any member state, in the latest data it was just above the Czech Republic, which fell nine percentage points to 9.7%
The highest proportions of non-EU citizens at risk of poverty or social exclusion are found in Sweden (57.3%), Greece (56.8%), France (53.8%) and Spain (53.7%). For the bloc as a whole, the figure was 44.8%.
In Poland, 18.3% of national citizens are classified as at risk of poverty or social exclusion, making it one of only three countries (the others being Bulgaria and the Czech Republic) in which this figure is higher than for non-EU citizens.
In recent years Poland has experienced a wave of immigration that is unprecedented in the country’s history and among the largest in the EU. Eurostat’s latest data show that in 2019 Poland issued more first residence permits to immigrants from outside the EU than any other member state for the third year running.
The same data revealed that, among the non-EU immigrants receiving residence permits in Poland, 86% were given them for employment reasons – more than double the proportion of 41% across the entire EU.
Statistics Poland (GUS), a government agency, estimates that by the end of 2019 there were two million foreigners living in the country, making up around 5% of the population. The majority – around 64% – came from neighbouring Ukraine.
Data published last month by Poland’s Office for Foreigners showed that the number of foreigners with valid residence documents increased by 8% over the preceding year, despite the pandemic and associated travel restrictions.
An international study published by Gallup last year found that Poland has recorded one of the biggest increases in public acceptance of migrants among the 140 counties surveyed.
“Poland stands out positively,” said Krzysztof Inglot, head of the Personnel Service recruitment company, in a statement to Notes from Poland. “Some time ago earnings determined the choice of a given country as a destination for economic migration, now security is also coming to the fore”.
“Foreigners want the country where they are going to offer legal employment and free access to medical care and to deal well with the pandemic,” said Inglot, pointing to the growing number of foreigners signing up for social insurance (ZUS) in Poland, which exceeded 720,000 by the end of 2020.
The new Eurostat data also show that, in 2019, 8.5% of the EU’s population aged under 60 lived in households where adults had worked less than 20% of their total work potential during the past year.
Poland, however, had the lowest proportion of people living in low-work-intensity households (4.7%) apart from the Czech Republic (4.2%).
Main image credit: Марьян Блан | @marjanblan on Unsplash
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
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