According to data of the Central Statistical Office, in 2023, 15.26 million people lived in rural areas, which constituted 41% of the total population of Poland. Our study conducted in October 2024 showed that the vast majority of this group are people who were born as rural residents. One-seventh moved from a village to a town or city during their life. Only one-eleventh experienced migration in the other direction, i.e. from an urban settlement to a village.

How would you describe yourself in terms of your place of residence and origin?

We also asked respondents how many generations they had lived in their town. The depth of roots of Poles in their places of residence turned out to be similar to that recorded nine years ago. The biggest difference is that, currently, more people live in the same town as their grandparents (up by 5 pct. points). About one-third are migrants, a quarter are people belonging to the second generation of residents of a locality, and slightly over one-third are rooted in that place for at least two generations.

How long has your family been connected with your place of residence?

The relatively strongest roots are characteristic of villages and small towns. A comparison with data from previous measurements shows that, especially in small towns, the percentage of the most “rooted” residents (living there for at least two generations) has clearly increased over the last decade, while the share of newcomers has fallen. For years, people have been writing, not only in Poland, about the crisis of small towns and their depopulation, especially concerning peripheral towns that are not in the orbit of large urban centres. It is therefore not surprising that CBOS studies also note this phenomenon. We also noticed its symptoms in our qualitative study from last year (Barometer of Small Towns, 2023). It turned out then that in some of the smallest towns, older people and their needs played an increasingly important role. Young people do not see a future for themselves in a town that focuses mainly on the needs of older people, so they look for a different place to live. In this way, two parallel depopulation trends occur, i.e. the dying out of the older generation and the tendency of the young to leave their hometowns. They simultaneously contribute to the strong depopulation trend of this group of towns.

We also asked Poles where they would like to live if it depended solely on them. Almost half (43%) would most like to live in the countryside. It is worth noting that in 1997 this percentage was significantly lower and amounted to 30%.

If you had the opportunity to choose where to live, would you prefer to live in:

Who has a better life– people in the city or in the countryside? Who has better access to education, greater opportunities for individual development or achieving a high social position? In all matters, the prevailing opinion is that the life chances of people from the countryside and the city are similar. To the greatest extent this applies to education and material living conditions: around two-thirds of respondents indicate such an answer. With less certainty (around 50%), respondents see the equality of opportunities for city and village residents in terms of individual development and the possibility of achieving a high social position.

Do people from rural areas currently have the same opportunities as people from cities to:

Sociodemographic analysis shows that among residents of large cities, the stereotype of lower life chances for people living in the countryside is more commonly shared than among residents of rural areas. The view that people from villages and cities have the same chances of obtaining a good education is expressed by 68% of respondents living in the countryside or in a small towns, including the vast majority (77%) of farmers. However, only 47% of residents of large cities express this opinion. Similar differences can be observed in the case of other issues.