The Baltic Demographic Disaster

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2013/07/19/the-baltic-demographic-disaster-since-1992-the-region-has-lost-more-than-20-of-its-population/

by gruseom • 13 years ago

68 67 13 years ago

forbes.com

bdon• 13 years ago

So what happened in 2010? The article doesn't explain the most prominent feature of the charts...

sp332• 13 years ago

That might be this comment: "It’s true that the Baltics suffered a particularly rapid outflow after the popping of their respective economic bubbles".

nmeofthestate• 13 years ago

I'm interested in levels of ethnic Russian emigration from the Baltics. Has this happened, and if so, how much does it contribute to this picture?

aeontech• 13 years ago

Interestingly, according to http://im.kommersant.ru/ISSUES.PHOTO/CORP/2013/02/21/dsryu4...., the Baltics combined have the largest russian diaspora in the world, followed by USA, Germany and Israel. Probably due to the proximity and relative ease of emigration from Russia to the Baltic states.

If you read russian, here is a series of articles with advice on various emigration destinations. It's an interesting view into the current mindset there. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2132694

fusiongyro2• 13 years ago

I don't, so if you're inclined to give a summary I'd appreciate it.

userulluipeste3• 13 years ago

There are countries that are not considered in that report, and some of them are big, with a major quota of Russian population (like Ukraine). That's probably because Russians don't have a diaspora there (and as far as I know people usually are considering a diaspora when they feel themselves outsiders in some way).

sqrt28• 13 years ago

It didn't happen and it does not contribute to the picture at all. People emigrated to the west (mostly Great Britain, Ireland and Spain), including the Russian speaking part.

The jump in the graph happened when the most recent economic crisis hit Baltic countries and drove their GDP roughly 20% down in a year.

Tuna-Fish• 13 years ago

They are the main component of the population loss. In 1989, the last census while in the USSR, the Baltics held a population of 1.7M ethnic Russians. After regaining independence, Estonia and Latvia denied citizenship to all post-1940 Russian immigrants (and their families). Today, only a million ethnic Russians remain. Some have been naturalized, but a lot have simply bailed, because the national populations are quite hostile to them.

slc6• 13 years ago

Can't speak about Estonia but in case of Latvia the idea of russian speaking people emigrating because of hostility is just ridiculous.

jdmitch• 13 years ago

I think that is actually a huge factor, and one of the key obvious things that the OP overlooked. Latvia (and I suspect the whole Baltic region) was at an artificially inflated population peak when the Soviet Union collapsed. It was one of the most economically prosperous areas of the Soviet Union, and had huge Soviet military bases. Retirement on the Baltic coast was the dream for military brass as well as many other Soviets in the 80s. Additionally, the freedom movements and greater autonomy in the second half of the 80s may have attracted others from other Soviet Republics.

Since independence, and particularly recently, Russians (who once made up over half of Latvia's population) have left, and in many cases not been welcome to stay. One of the major tensions in Latvian politics today is the status of Russian Latvians.

With that backdrop (and given the other factors, such as migration to the rest of the EU) it isn't really that surprising that population levels are returning to that of the 60's.

kibwen2• 13 years ago

"over the past two decades, their populations have collapsed at a historically unprecedented rate."

I don't think it's completely unprecedented, but I doubt that people will take heart in being compared favorably to the Black Death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

vanderZwan• 13 years ago

And what if we narrow it down to population collapse as a result of emigration?

kibwen2• 13 years ago

The only thing that immediately comes to mind is the Great Irish Famine, wherein around 10% of the population may have emigrated away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29

I'm certain there are other historical mass migrations of such enormous magnitude, but my point was really to glibly provide perspective for such a massive population decrease.

jeffdavis• 13 years ago

It doesn't seem wildly different from say, Detroit. It looks like the population declined about 30% over the last 20 years[1].

Granted, the population is smaller than the Baltic states, but the population of the Baltic states is also smaller than that of Russia.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit

stevoski• 13 years ago

This seems an overly simplistic discussion of a single chart.

Is it ethnic Russians leaving these countries?

Why the sudden drop in one year, which seems to represent a change of definitions?

gruseom4• 13 years ago

A blog post will inevitably oversimplify a demographic chart involving millions of people. It's still an interesting chart.

The sudden drop in one year, as the article points out, was likely because of the economic crisis. As for whether it's ethnic Russians leaving the country, it's not obvious to me why that is the first thing that matters; most discussions on population and economics don't immediately leap to ethnicity, do they?

seanmcdirmid2• 13 years ago

Of course ethnicity matters. If most of the outflow is Russian, then to intentionally ignore that connection is intellectually dishonest.

throwaway_yy2Di• 13 years ago

Why the sudden drop in one year, which seems to represent a change of definitions?

That seems to be the case. This is from the same source as these population figures (Eurostat):

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....

In footnote (3) it says emigration figures for Lithuania -- the largest of the Baltics -- are overstated in 2010 and 2011. Those years include emigrants who had left in previous years but hadn't been counted.

bradleyland2• 13 years ago

Forbes, yeesh. It may be trite to roll out the correlation-is-not-causation argument, but this is so incredibly blatant it turns my stomach.

The author's thesis could be summarized as: The Baltic population level has declined consistently since 1992, therefore Baltic economic policies must not be as desirable as some make them out to be.

Population migration and economic policy are two astoundingly broad topics. Any attempt to link the two requires at least some analysis of each. This article contains none.

Flagged.

gruseom4• 13 years ago

That's not fair at all. The author's points are: 1) there has been a major population decline in the Baltics; 2) the decline is staggering even by comparison to Russia, which is widely thought to have a problem with population; 3) people making claims about economic reform in the Baltics should not ignore such a major factor.

bradleyland2• 13 years ago

Points 1 & 2 are facts, and are not in dispute, but point 3 is a question, not a statement.

"Don't ignore population growth/decline when examining economic reform."

Ok, but what of it? Is anyone ignoring that? If the author believes that the population decline in the Baltics is due to the economic policy therein, then they should find ways to establish that causal relationship, not just point at a graph and say "see here".

vldmit• 13 years ago

It is not correct to compare population of Russia and Baltic countries. They border each other, but live in completely different economic spaces.

No doubts that author, who position himself as Russia watcher, is familiar with the demography in russian regions bordering with baltic states. Depopulation there is the same if not more severe that in Latvia or Estonia, yet author just 'forget' to mention that little detail.

a8da6b0c91d• 13 years ago

Some of the hype about Russian population decline is overblown. Whereas people under communism formed families young, now careers take longer to establish and people tend to have kids older just as in the west. This transition contributed to a period of suppressed birth rates, but births are increasing now.

freehunter2• 13 years ago

So what are the immigration policies of these Baltic states? How are they enticing new citizens? Have they relaxed their immigration criteria to try to get more citizens, or is it strict?

If I wanted to immigrate to, say, Estonia next year, how difficult would it be?

adamgravitis• 13 years ago

They're all Eurozone now, so EU citizens can move between those countries without issue. Part of the population decline can be attributed to youth moving to central Europe for work.

Additionally, other posters have been right about ethnic Russians leaving the Baltics, which is something governments have actually been trying to encourage anyhow. The Soviets had hugely increased the number of ethnic Russians in the Baltics, nearly to the point of overtaking the native populations.

Wikipedia has a partial graph for Latvia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Ethnic_gr...

rimantas• 13 years ago

  > The Soviets had hugely increased the number of ethnic
  > Russians in the Baltics

It depends on country a lot. E.g. in Estonia 70% are Estonians and 25% are Russians, meanwhile in Lithuania 84% are Lithuanians and less than 6% are Russians—there are more Poles than Russians.

Lapsa• 13 years ago

No one wants to immigrate here. And actually, I'm happy with that.

jacquesm• 13 years ago

P.O.E.

mb_723• 13 years ago

Then that could well make you one of ultra-nationalistic Estonians who would rather see their country and language die rather than have it be 'tainted'.

I'm half Australian and half Estonian - and have citizenship of both countries. I've worked as a developer in both countries, and currently reside (and work) in Estonia. I see this attitude all the time in Estonia; despite the obvious need for immigration, many people would rather see the population keep on decreasing. Currently it's simply too difficult for professionals to get an Estonian visa, and wages are not attractive enough, in general, to attract those with an EU passport. This is part of the problem that will, in time, kill Estonia and likely the other Baltic countries.

fusiongyro2• 13 years ago

I've given it two minutes of thought a couple of times. You have fans--every country does.

sologoub3• 13 years ago

The Baltic demographic situation is indeed very complex. The article does little justice to this.

Someone has already raised the question of ethnic Russians and other non-Baltic origin leaving these countries. This section of the population actually have a very strong incentive to leave - they are considered non-citizen and have none of the EU privileges[1].

According to the same Wikipedia article, Latvia alone started out with 715k non-citizen in 1991, and now has 290,660 as of March 2011 census. Some left, some died and some became citizen, but the drop is huge and the outflow is intentional with the aim of increasing the proportion of "native" ethnic groups.

At the same time, Russia has been taking in immigrants. The 1 million drop does not show the changes in underlying ethnic proportions. Russian politicians have not been as concerned with maintaining the ethnic composition, which they may start to look at as the riots fueled by ethnic tensions have become much more common.

In any case, pure economic speculations don't do justice to that region. It's a very complex balancing act, with nationalists on both sides willing to chop of their nose to spite their face.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizens_(Latvia)

kristaps• 13 years ago

as the riots fueled by ethnic tensions have become much more common

You seem to imply that there are already "riots fueled by ethnic tensions", care to point to an example?

myth_drannon• 13 years ago

Plenty... just a recent one is in Pugachyovo(Russians vs Chechens) The state media tries to suppress the news but Livejournal is full of blog posts with photos.

atsaloli• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Night

slc6• 13 years ago

Mixing in the non-citizens in a discussion about demographics seems wrong. Most of the non-citizens are people around retirement age - factory workers who were sent in the country from other soviet countries, military families and so on. The cause for reduction in numbers of non-citizens is simple - they died.

Also claiming that they have an incentive to leave the country seems wrong, because the requirements to acquire citizenship are so easy. You just have to prove that you understand the Latvian language at a very basic level. If you can do that, then you get citizenship. Much easier than moving to a different country.

jvrossb• 13 years ago

That doesn't sound right - if I speak fluent Russian and I'm older than 15, it's probably easier for me to move to a Russian-speaking country (where I might have family) than learn Latvian. Especially if my social circle in Latvia is exclusively Russian speaking.

glesica3• 13 years ago

Also claiming that they have an incentive to leave the country seems wrong

I don't know about that, ever been to Narva? Ethnic Russians are, at least to some extent, in a position similar to that of African Americans in the US, but it is easier for them to leave since they just arrived a few decades ago, whereas African Americans have been in the US long enough to have established long-term connections and to have lost contact with the "old world". So it seems pretty reasonable to me to say that Ethnic Russians have an incentive to leave the Baltic states.

dharma1• 13 years ago

the same is happening in many other countries where salaries are a third of (relatively) nearby countries and people are free to move. I don't expect the population decline in the Baltics to continue at that pace though

jdangu• 13 years ago

Is it a good idea to build an offshore software development team in one of the baltic countries? Anyone has some perspective with that?

bergerjac• 13 years ago

I can't say anything for the Baltic region; however, I'm currently in the Balkans. If you can connect American customers with offshore developers, there would be money to be had.

I'm currently working with some web devs and their previous work and the tools they use exemplifies their skills.

slc6• 13 years ago

There are already local "franchises" of the large companies like Tietonator and Accenture. The computer science department of the Latvian University, which provides free government funded education in computer science is basically controlled by stock holders of such large offshoring companies. The problem is - the country is very small. About 2 million people. So even taking into account the free education, the absolute number of competent programmers will be quite small. It is already a challenge to find employees for basic web development positions.

Plasmoid• 13 years ago

JRebel is produced in Estonia. So it seems to work out well.

Dewie• 13 years ago

I have lived with three or four Latvians. Two of them said that they moved from Latvia because, while they could get work there, they couldn't really get by on the wages offered by those jobs.

MrKey• 13 years ago

Depopulation is not a disaster. We save the world!

The Baltic Demographic Disaster

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