Economic Migrants and Refugees in Polish Cities – The Case of Krakow

Poland has experienced in the last two decades first, unprecedented outflow of its citizens mostly to countries of Western Europe and more recently also dynamic inflow of migrants. As a result of the processes of immigration Poland ceases to be a country of emigration and emerges for the first time in the modern history as a country of immigration. The proposed session will be devoted to the urban dimension of the migration transition in Poland. It will show on the example of Krakow how the capital of the Malopolska region has transformed from being a city whose residents migrate abroad in search for jobs or better living conditions to became a very popular migration destination for people from different parts of the world, who come to the city to work, study or open/run their own business. During the session a new report on the immigrants in Krakow will be presented to the global audience. The report produced by the Multiculturalism and Migration Observatory based at the Centre for Advanced Studies on Population and Religion of the Cracow University of Economics will shed light on the situation of immigrants in Krakow on the basis of wide range of datasets (registers of persons legalizing their stay in Poland in the Małopolska Voivodship Office, data on permanent and temporary registration in the Krakow City Hall, registers of persons recorded in the Social Insurance Institution). The report will describe in detail the transformation of the population of immigrants in Krakow in the last year from 2019 till 2021. It will show the size of the immigrant population in Krakow and its important demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Moreover, it will identify the places of greatest concentration of immigrants in the city and describe their situation in the education system and in the labor market. Data for the year 2021 will be compared with information on foreigners in Krakow in 2020 and 2019. The report will inter alia show that in spite of the pandemic, the population of immigrants in the city continues to grow. During the session we will also discuss the impact of the influx of large wave of refugees from Ukraine to Polish towns and cities. On the example of Krakow we will present how the city authorities, civil society and its inhabitants responded to the unprecedented inflow of large number of Ukrainian women and children to second largest Polish city and how their various needs have been catered for and what issues have arisen. Some preliminary findings of the ongoing research on the situation of refugees from Ukraine in Krakow will be also presented.