Poland’s government is making a new push to lure Poles living abroad home. But what lies behind the lofty rhetoric?
At the start of this year, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Poles living abroad to “make a New Year’s resolution—come back to your thriving homeland.” It was the latest in a line of such appeals over the past decade. Those who come back find themselves in a country that does not entirely correspond with politicians’ promises. Instead of a booming Poland, they find themselves in what many describe as a “cardboard state”—one that looks modern but functions precariously.
Poland’s rapid development has frequently been imitative: new roads, airports, and shopping malls built to showcase progress rather than to strengthen long-term structures. Administrative efficiency remains low, with the country below the EU average in the Government Effectiveness Index. Frequent regulatory changes and institutional improvisation undermine stability.
Public services depend more on individual goodwill than on systemic reliability. Compared with France, Germany, or Ireland, Poland still lags behind in healthcare funding and quality. Long queues, underfunded hospitals, and a shortage of specialists push many patients toward private clinics. Education faces similar challenges. Although public spending on it is just below the EU median, per-student investment remains low, and access to quality education in poorer or rural regions is still limited. While Polish pupils continue to outperform the EU average, the 2022 PISA results revealed sharp declines in reading, mathematics, and science—a reflection of the 2017 curriculum reform and of the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Social trust is another weak point: fewer than one in four Poles say that “people can be trusted.” This atmosphere of mistrust extends to public institutions such as the Social Insurance Institution or the Tax Office, which often treat citizens not as partners but as potential fraudsters trying to outsmart the system. The roots of this run deep. Decades of foreign rule and communist authoritarianism taught Poles to see the state not as a guardian of the public good but as an adversary to be outwitted.
None of these shortcomings appear on the official government portal for returnees, which has been operating since 2008. Nor did any in the brochure issued in 1933, when the Second Republic urged emigrants to “come home to a safe and prosperous Poland.” In reality, at the time the country, unevenly developed after 123 years of partitions, was struggling with unemployment, poverty, and hunger in rural areas.
Back then, the government stressed that only those with savings should return, preferably to invest in farmland, since cities offered neither jobs nor housing. Today, returnees are again valued primarily for their economic utility—presented as “crucial for strengthening the economy” and as proof of Poland’s success. In 2021, the governing Law and Justice party declared that the unprecedented wave of return, around 900,000 Poles after 2018, was evidence that its economic policies were working.
Since coming to power in 2015, Law and Justice framed return as a question of national interest, transforming it from a personal choice into a patriotic act and a potential solution to Poland’s growing demographic challenges. The country has experienced negative natural population growth continuously since 2013, and this trend deepened after the pandemic. The population has also been aging steadily since the early 2000s. The process began in the 1990s, when birth rates collapsed after the transition to a market economy, and became perhaps irreversible after 2002, when deaths first outnumbered births. Since then, the share of people aged 65 and over has doubled, reaching about 20 percent of the population. With a fertility rate of just 1.19, the fourth-lowest in the EU, Poland is now one of Europe’s fastest-aging societies.
The recently sworn-in President Karol Nawrocki has embraced a similar narrative. Depopulation and societal aging were central themes of his campaign for the election, in which Law and Justice supported him. Alongside tax breaks for parents with two or more children, he highlighted the importance of a new repatriation program for Poles living in Brazil and Central Asia.
Although the Polish community in Brazil—the second-largest in the world—has been largely forgotten by the authorities for more than 150 years, Nawrocki seeks to reach out to the descendants there of those who left the territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet most of them no longer speak Polish or identify with the country at all.
The idea of “bringing Poles back home” as a cure for demographic decline remains a convenient substitute for a genuine migration policy. It is easier to celebrate Poland’s “economic miracle” than to design meaningful integration strategies for foreigners already living in the country and doing the low-skilled jobs Poles no longer wish to perform. At present, over 1 million workers from 150 countries are employed in Poland, making up about 6.5 percent of the workforce. Nearly half of them work in jobs below their qualifications, with the largest numbers employed in manufacturing, transportation and logistics, construction, and administrative support services. Yet, despite this, Poland continues to experience significant labor shortages in transport and construction, as well as in healthcare and education—26 occupations are officially listed as high-demand. There is also a growing need for professionals in accounting, information technology, and emerging fields such as artificial intelligence.
Currently, between 2.5 and 2.8 million foreigners live in the country. In 2019, at the peak of the emigration that followed EU accession, about 2.4 milion Poles were living in other member states. Almost two-thirds of them have not returned.
Why would they? Apart from tax incentives, there are no tangible measures to support returnees, even though return, despite appearances, can be as disorienting and stressful as moving abroad in the first place. Those who come back are largely left to their own devices, expected to re-enter the labor market seamlessly and to navigate public institutions effortlessly. Neither politicians nor society at large seem to notice that returnees often struggle with a deep sense of in-betweenness: having developed hybrid European identities, they are no longer fully “Polish,” yet not entirely foreign either. After years abroad, many experience reverse culture shock, grappling with everyday interactions and a work culture that shows little respect for employees.
The only consistent policy is the one directed at Poles deported or exiled to the Soviet Union under Stalin’s regime. Upon returning, they receive assistance with learning Polish and adjusting to life in the country, as well as access to subsidized housing. Local governments that agree to host returnees can rely on state funding. In 2016, the Law and Justice government amended the 2000 Repatriation Act, presenting this as a measure to alleviate labor shortages.
The current government coalition has almost doubled spending on repatriation. Since last year, Poland also has a comprehensive migration strategy for the first time in its modern history—but the document has been widely criticized. Experts argue that it places too much emphasis on border security and control while offering little on integration, addressing labor shortages, or protecting migrants’ rights. Instead of viewing migration as an opportunity to bridge demographic and economic gaps, the strategy treats it largely as a problem to be contained. It lacks measurable goals, clear implementation mechanisms, and any real vision of how newcomers could become part of society.
The call for Poles abroad to “come home” sounds hollow when set against reality. Most of the nearly 1 million returnees from other EU countries did not come back because of political campaigns or patriotic slogans, but out of longing for family, friends, and a sense of belonging. After years abroad, they have returned to a country still struggling with inefficiency, mistrust, and inequality—a place that promises progress yet too often delivers frustration.
Ula Idzikowska is an independent reporter and novelist. She was a Milena Jesenská Fellow at the IWM in 2025.
