The Baltic Demographic Disaster • Hacker News Board

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#11

Post by Tuna-Fish » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #4

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?

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#12

Post by vldmit » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 6:53 PM UTC

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#13

Post by jdmitch » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 6:58 PM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #4

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?

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#14

Post by gruseom » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:11 PM UTC

bradleyland wrote: post #10

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…

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#15

Post by gruseom » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:21 PM UTC

stevoski wrote: post #9

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?

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?

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#16

Post by a8da6b0c91d » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

vldmit wrote: post #12

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 detai…

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#17

Post by freehunter » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:29 PM UTC

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?

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#18

Post by adamgravitis » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:33 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #17

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?

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...

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#19

Post by kibwen » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #7

kibwen wrote: post #5

"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

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

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.

Re: The Baltic Demographic Disaster

#20

Post by Lapsa » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #17

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?

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