Poland, an abundant source of cheap workers, helped push the population of England and Wales to a record high in 2011.
The population of the two British countries rose 7% to a record 56.1 million in the 10 years to 2011, results of last year’s census showed Monday. The majority of the increase in population was due to migration.
Poland’s own national census, published earlier this year, showed the country bleeding its permanent residents. Nearly two million Poles resided permanently outside their country in 2011, and departures over the past decade reduced Poland’s population to 36.6 million in 2011 from 37.4 million in 2002. Migration from Poland increased after the country joined the European Union in 2004, when its nationals gained permit-free access to the labor markets of the entire bloc.
Nearly a third of Polish emigrants lived in the U.K., the Polish census showed. Britain was much more popular for Polish expatriates than Poland’s neighbor Germany, the destination for about a fifth of Polish emigrants.
Despite enjoying healthy growth during the global financial crisis that began in 2008, Poland remains relatively poor when compared with the most developed economies it aspires to eventually join. The average gross domestic product, adjusted for purchasing power, exceeded $20,000 per person only last year, compared with $36,100 in the U.K. and $37,900 in Germany, according to the International Monetary Fund. In unadjusted terms, the gaps are even bigger and will take a generation to bridge.
A considerable part of the Polish population still lives in poverty or on very modest income. First or manual jobs often pay too little to make a person fully independent. The average pretax wage in the commercial sector was just under 3,620 zlotys ($1,065) a month in May.
According to Polish statistics, the country’s population registered as domiciled will shrink to 36 million by 2035. Excluding immigrants who left Poland permanently, the country’s actual population may be well below that number if migration and birth trends don’t change. Britain’s population, in the meantime, is set to keep growing, with the U.K. expected to become the EU’s most populous state by 2060.