Around 77% of Poles were involved in helping refugees from Ukraine in the early months of the war, for which purpose they spent an estimated 9-10 billion zloty (€1.93-2.14 billion) out of their own pockets, a new study by the Polish Economic Institute (PIE) has found.
The PIE report, which was based on a survey of 2,200 adults conducted in April and May, found that assistance most often took the form of buying items for refugees, with 59% of respondents declaring that they had done so.
Over half of respondents had donated money, 17% had volunteered their own time, 7% provided housing to refugees and 5% offered transport to them. One fifth of respondents also declared having “helped refugees sort out various matters”.
“The scale of Poles’ engagement was largest at the start of the war, when 70% of adults were involved in helping refugees,” said PIE in its report.
“This was largely driven by a desire to help and constituted a spontaneous reaction (often an emotional one) to refugees’ suffering and the growing number arriving in Poland to escape the war. At the same time, half of Poles were engaged in helping refugees consistently – both at the start of the war and in subsequent weeks.”
Poland has been the primary destination for those fleeing the war, with around two thirds of refugees from Ukraine crossing its border. While many subsequently moved on to other countries and some have returned to Ukraine, it is estimated that over one million remain in Poland.
The unprecedented influx of refugees prompted an outburst of support from Polish society, with national and local authorities, businesses, NGOs, religious organisations and millions of individual Poles offering various forms of assistance.
PIE estimates that total spending by the Polish state and by Poles privately during the first three months reached 25.4 billion zloty (€5.45 billion), nearly 1% of the country’s GDP. Its study found that the highest earners and women were most likely to assist refugees.
“However, it is worth noting that, even among people who earned less than 2,000 zloty [per month], assistance was quite common; only 26% of people in this group did not help at all,” notes PIE. Most respondents declared spending between 100-500 zloty on helping refugees in the first three months of the war.
Main image credit: Wojtek Radwanski/EU (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
