Alina Potrykowska

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland
John I. Clarke, Chiirman, Committee on Population and Environment, International Union for the Scientific SUdy of Population and North Durham Health Authority, Appleton House, Lanchester Road, Durham DH1 5XZ, United Kingdom

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland
John I. Clarke, Chiirman, Committee on Population and Environment, International Union for the Scientific SUdy of Population and North Durham Health Authority, Appleton House, Lanchester Road, Durham DH1 5XZ, United Kingdom

Abstract

The author presents the study of spatial mobility of population within theurban region of Warsaw. The analysis of spatial variations of intra-regional andintra-urban migration has confirmed remarkably persistent regularities.

Keywords: intra-urban migration, age-specific migration schedules

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The basic framework of demographic processes is the age-sex population structure, shaped by births, deaths and migration flows. From another prospective, a given age structure determines to a certain degree, the intensity of natural population change, as well as migration flows. Hence, the main problem of demography includes the analysis of the interdependences between the age-sex structure and the basic components of population change. This problem, with reference made to the present and future population growth in the Warsaw region, is taken up in this paper.

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The ageing and the elderly are among the common key-wôrds in the social science literature today. One more specific theme, i.e. migrations by the elderly population, is of a particular interest to geographers as well as to some demographers and sociologists. The elderly migrants are found to reveal distinct behaviour and motivation patterns, hence this branch of studies is clearly separated from the main stream research on human migrations, and often closely interlinked with other lines of research on the elderly populations (see for example, Cribier 1982; Warnes 1982; Warnes and Law 1983).In Poland, the studies on elderly migrations were introduced by M. Latuch in the early 1970s (see: Latuch 1974, 1977; Bondaruk 1976) and focused initially on magnitude and causes of out-migration by elderly persons from the major cities, in particular Warsaw. More recently, a comprehensive analysis of social and economic factors of elderly migration was carried out by K. Stolarczyk (1985). Her study, was based on a special survey among a sample of persons aged 60 years and over who changed their place of residence during four selected months in 1979. In a parallel study, based on current population registration data, E. Frątczak (1984) attempted to estimate the role of rural-to-urban migrations, against fertility and morality change, in the growth of the elderly population numbers in Poland between 1950 and 1978. Finally, P. Korcelli and A. Fotrykowska (1986) discussed intependencies between mobility rates and family status of elderly migrants, and presented an analysis of migrations of the elderly by age and cause.The present paper looks into spatial patterns of the eiderly population and the recent configurations of elderly migration in Poland. Basic reference units comprise 49 vivodships, i.e. administrative regions of the upper level. Some migration data are also presented for a more aggregated division into urban and rural areas. Geographical distribution is an important dimension from the social policy perspective. Compared with other countries in Europe, the ageing of the population of Poland is neither very advanced nor particularly rapid. However, spatial concentration of the elderly popula-tion, as well as specific patterns of its redistribution, generate a number of policy issues on the regional and local level. Such problems range from the provision of specialized services to the maintenance of housing and the utilization of farmland.

Piotr Korcelli [korcelli@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland
Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

In the past years, studies on human spatial mobility has benefited from the greater availablity of aggregate data. Research on mobility has been broadly concerned with the estimation of migration flows, the identification of migration propensities by age, sex and other characteristics, and with explanation migration by economic and social determinants. This approach has yielded useful results, but it has also raised some new questions. One of the most important regularities observed in human migration is its relationship to age. This may be attributed to the relationship of age to other characteristics of migrants and to other aspects of the family life-cycle and work (Courgeau 1985, p. 139). As statistical schedules of the general structures of population according to the rates of age-specific fertility or mortality demonstrate, that remarkably persistent regularities are characteristic of most human populations. In demographic terminology they are known as hypothetical model schedules. Contrary to well-deve-loped model schedules applied in analyses of fertility and mortality, similar techniques have not yet been applied in migration studies. A. Rogers and L. Castro (1981, 1985) have used those techniques, borrowing them from analyses of fertility and mortality, and applying in their most recent studies, to the modelling of migration schedules. The authors use the notion of a multi-regional model and concentrate upon the development of families of schedules according to age. Model migration schedules have been applied in a number of countries (Rogers and Castro 1985). Model migration schedules may be used to graduate observed migration data to derive summary measures for comparative analysis. They may also be used for interpretation with respect to age intervals of observed migration, to assess the reliability of empirical migration data, and to resolve problems caused by incomplete data (Drewe 1985). However, this question requires a detailed analysis and an assessment of the complexity of migration and the various forms of interdependence and possibilities for applying those models. In the light of the above remarks, it seems advisable to apply synthetic models of hypothetical migration schedules in Polish conditions on the basis of available stasistical data. In Poland, model migration schedules were primarily used to assess the temporal stability of age-and sex-specific migration (Potrykowska 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986).

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The depopulation of rural areas, its speed and scale as a demographic process depends on the level of the economic development of the country and on the current economic policy, and in particular on the agricultural policy. The phenomena of rural depopulation appear in the territories of some voivodships in the western and northern areas of Poland, as well as in central and eastern Poland. Although the decrease of rural population in absolute numbers had been previously observed in some regions of the country, it was not, initially, regarded as a disadvantageous phenomenon. The time is not so remote when the main socio-economic problem in Poland was rural over-population and the need for decreasing it (Mirowski 1985). During the inter-world war years, in the 1930s, some economists estimated the overpopulatin of the Polish rural areas at about 8 million people, which amounted to, approximately, 1/3 of the overall rural population count. This overpopulation hindered the modernization of agriculture and slowed down the general socio-economic development of the country. As the result of the biological war losses and mass demographic movements just after the war, which were connected with the resettlement process, the rural over-population problem had already disappeared before 1950. Thereafter, in the 1950s and 1960s, there were still mass migrations going on from rural to urban areas, but this outflow from villages was compensated by the very high birthrates there. The rural population in Poland, although undergoing slight ups and downs, remained at the level of approximately 15 000 000 people. Under these circumstances, there were no reasons for anxiety about rural population, although the on-going decrease of the agricultural population had been a problem throughout this period. Still, when taking into account the fact that employment decrease is unavoidably linked with the modernization of agriculture, this phenomen was not regarged as disadvantageous for agricultural production. On the regional scale, however, there appeared in some particular locations population decreases in rural areas and especially so in the regions with domintaing agricultural employment, and deprived of industrial development as well as other non-agricultural job opportunities. This phenomenon did not, however, appear distinctly enough in the analyses performed on the regional level (according to the previous administrative breakdown in which Poland was divided into 17 voivodships but only in these studies which considered smaller territorial units, i.e., boroughs, communes, and new voivod-ships, according to the new spatial division, in force since June 1st, 1975 (Dzieworiski and Kosinski 1967; Iwanicka — Lyra 1981; Eberhardt 1983).In this study, the depopulation process in rural areas has been presented from the point of view of demographic statistics in a regional pattern, according to the division into voivodships, and the progress of this process as a succession of the development policy of the country.

Andrzej Gawryszewski, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland
Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Abstract

The present study is mainly intended to examine the concept of the functionalurban region. In accordance with this concept, the boundaries of the outerzone of the Warsaw agglomeration are regarded as identical with the extentof the area displaying spatial links with its inner zone, following from thedistribution of places of residence and work. Practically, it has been assumed that thedaily extent of the investigated area is determined by commuting to work in Warsawfrom suburban areas as in 1973, while the percentage relation of people commutingto work in Warsaw to the number of people employed in the nonagriculturalsectors in the given administrative unit (community or town) is taken as thebasic measure of link intensity. The marginal value of the indicator of linkshas been taken to be 0.01, less than the analogous marginal values used in theliterature up to now (Fig. 1, see also Potrykowska 1983).

Alina Potrykowska, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland