Depopulation in rural areas in Poland – socio-economic local perspective

The article deals with the issue of rural population decline in Poland in 1995-2017. The aim of the study was to present the phenomenon of depopulation involving a decrease in the number of people living in rural areas in Poland at the local level. Based on the literature, the potential effects of depopulation on local development were indicated. The data of the Central Statistical Office and the results of own research carried out in three rural communes in 2019 were used. The occurrence of regional differentiation of rural depopulation processes in Poland was found. Analyzing the phenomenon at the local level, it was found that as much as 38.6% of rural communes were characterized by depopulation (a loss of over 5% of the population), including for 10.7% of communes, the population decline in the analyzed period was more than 15%. These areas can be considered as problem areas. A particularly unfavorable situation occurs in eastern Poland and the Opolskie Voivodeship. There was a positive correlation between the loss of population and the development of own revenues of communes' budgets. Studies show that the phenomenon of depopulation is mainly caused by a negative natural increase, which was preceded by a migration outflow associated with the lack of jobs in rural areas.