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Following EU enlargement in 2004, the United Kingdom and Ireland experienced large‐scale migration from Poland and other new EU states. The Poles who migrated to both jurisdictions were demographically similar and have faced similar challenges although these have begun to diverge in the context of Brexit. Previous research emphasized the intentional unpredictability of many Polish migrants who deferred decisions whether to settle or return which appears to account for limited political incorporation in both the Irish and UK cases prior to Brexit. This literature also examined how such migrants have become socially embedded but not politically integrated. Drawing on surveys conducted in Ireland and the UK during 2018, we highlight predicaments arising from the thin nature of EU citizenship which allowed for free movement but has neglected political integration. In the Irish case, we suggest that EU migrants, including Poles, are likely to remain detached from citizenship and political participation.

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The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union will end the European Freedom of Movement and the privileged migration status of EU Citizens in the UK, which will likely affect ‘Brexit families’ and their transnational care arrangements. This is a case study of the biggest migrant group in the UK, namely Poles. Before the Brexit referendum, the first wave of the in-depth interviews identified several types of migrants’ intentions concerning elderly care for their parents who remained in Poland. The research approached intentions as discursive strategies: declarations of care commitment and statements provided to explain the absence of care intentions. The second wave was conducted after the UK had decided to exit the EU and new policies concerning EU citizens were being developed. Brexit’s influence on elderly care intentions is twofold. First, it brings higher uncertainty about future migration regulations and disorientates migrants about the possibilities regarding reunification with their parents in the UK. Second, Brexit appears in the interviews as a discursive construction to alleviate a migrant’s involvement in direct care provision, where they still deem it normatively appropriate to enact this cultural norm, but do not intend to in fact do so.

BACKGROUND The significance of mortality and fertility changes to the process of population ageing has been widely recognised in demographic research for many countries. Despite growing territorial mobility, however, the impact of international migration on changes in a population's age structure has so far been explored in a less systematic way. OBJECTIVE Our objective is twofold: first, to examine in a formal way the impact of international mobility on a population's age structure, and second, to estimate this impact for Poland, which is currently experiencing a coincidence of low fertility and high emigration of young persons. METHODS We extend the age-specific growth rates model in order to allow for the direct impact of immigration and emigration on the size of age-specific groups, as well as the indirect effect expressed in additional (in case of inflow) or 'missing' (in case of outflow) births due to international mobility. RESULTS Despite the massive scale of emigration from Poland, its direct impact appears to be instantaneous and smaller than that of fertility or mortality. We show that if no emigration from Poland had occurred since 1980 (i.e., for almost three decades), in 2015 the proportion of old persons would have been 1.1 percentage points lower than it actually was. The indirect effect translates into a loss of approximately 10% of births most recently, which means that it has long-term and far-reaching consequences for the population of Poland.