Identification and Evaluation of Demographic Processes in Poland with Special Regard to the Rural Areas

Abstract

The aim of this article was to provide detailed spatial identification and explanation of the main phenomena and demographic processes in Poland, with particular emphasis on the specificity of rural areas and urban-rural relations. Data on population phenomena and processes were analyzed in 10 categories of communes (gminas) distinguished on the basis of the administrative-and-settlement hierarchy, socio-economic functions and morphological characteristics. The analysis includes selected issues from this study, related to natural and migratory flows, demographic forecasts as well as conclusions and recommendations for regional and local development. Since depopulation affects the state budget and excessively burdens the social welfare system, development of new demographic forecasts is strongly recommended, as current ones are not reliable for rural areas, because they do not take account of the actual scale of internal and external migrations. The analyses, evaluations and forecasts should increasingly take into account a division of rural areas into different categories in terms of functional characteristics (suburban areas, typical agricultural gminas, tourist and transitional ones, etc.). In view of the anticipated and irreversible depopulation of vast portions of Poland’s rural areas, analytical work on the national plan for rural development should urgently be started, to address such issues as more effective matching of local services networks, preventing low-density housing, a possibility to adjust and modify administrative divisions at local and district level, migration and settlement policy, tourism and leisure policy.