Polish migration to the UK

Abstract

The European Treaty of Accession in 2004 precipitated an unprecedented influx of immigrants to Britain. Among the new A8 (Eastern European countries with low per capita incomes) countries, Polish were the most dominant, most numerous and the most visible. With the accession to the EU, it was now possible for Polish migrants to move, to work in, and live in the UK with almost no restrictions. The present thesis focused on the changing migration motivations by contrasting the history of Polish migration to the migration since 2004.By analyzing aspects like age, gender relation, and social network, the question in how far the motivations have changed was answered and these aspects were examined through migration models by Lee (1966) and Ravenstein (1899). Furthermore, to discover changes in migration behavior, these aspects were compared and concluded that the type of migration has changed from chain migration to circular migration, implying that migrants return home after a specific interval. The accession in 2004 resulted in a new type of migration and points towards a cyclical migration trend within Europe.