Effective Cohesion Policy? Long-Term Economic and Social Convergence in Poland

The aim of this article is to determine the relationship between the processes of economic and social convergence in Polish voivodeships. The correlation between these two processes is still unclear and the mechanisms behind them are not fully discovered. The goal of this article requires determining whether the changes in the level of disproportions in the GDP per capita translate into changes in social cohesion and what is the nature of this relationship. Those issues are still relevant and important due to their cognitive and practical value. In view of the above, using various analysis tools (i.e., the correlation coefficient and regression function), the authors determine whether economic convergence (both beta and sigma) and social convergence (with the use of the TOPSIS method) is observed in Polish regions in the years 2000-2022. The obtained results allow us to state that in the analyzed period, economic and social divergence processes occurred in Poland. The constantly deepening disproportions seem to be relatively permanent and caused by differences in the demographic potential (including urbanization potential) of individual regions that are difficult to eliminate, as well as by different development trajectories during the period of political transformation after 1989.