
The Baltic Demographic Disaster - gruseom
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/
======
sologoub
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)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizens_\(Latvia\))

~~~
slc
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.

~~~
glesica
> 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.

~~~
mb_72
You could make that comparison if African Americans had been invaders of the
US, but not otherwise.

Narva is a huge problem for the Estonian government - unemployment there is
high, and the educational institutions struggle to field teachers who can
teach in Estonian. As a result, young people with a Russian background are at
a disadvantage with respect to basic language skills.

It's also fair to say there are a number of those in Narva who wish for their
'countrymen' to come rolling over the border again.

~~~
glesica
Why does it matter how a discriminated-against minority group got to a place?
Russian Balts are treated poorly. African Americans are treated poorly. Both
groups suffer from lack of opportunities, institutional discrimination at
various points, and a cycle of poverty caused largely by bigotry. How they got
there is really immaterial.

~~~
slc
You forgot to compare the treatment of the russian speaking people in the
baltic states to the treatment of jews in the nazi germany. Both were treated
poorly.

------
bradleyland
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.

~~~
gruseom
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.

~~~
bradleyland
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".

~~~
gruseom
You're complaining about a causality claim that he never makes.

~~~
acjohnson55
He only nods his head repeatedly in its general direction.

------
stevoski
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?

~~~
gruseom
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?

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

~~~
gruseom
Of course there's no question of intentionally ignoring anything. My question
is about the economics. Presumably, the economic significance of population
decline has to do with its effect on GDP, growth, and the like. It's not
obvious (is it?) which of these questions have answers that change depending
on the ethnicity of who comes or goes.

There's also the question of whether the outflow does in fact consist mostly
of Russians. Is there data on this? No one has presented any here, and the
various comments in the thread contradict one another.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It would be extremely useful to know if the outflow are a lot of say "aging
Russians" or "young Estonian/Latvians", as each would have extremely different
implications. The fact that the information is missing in the article means we
can only speculate. Perhaps the information is obscured or those statistics
aren't collected, but without knowing, it is much more difficult to find the
cause and ultimately come up with a solution.

------
freehunter
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?

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

~~~
mb_72
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.

~~~
freehunter
I actually do like the Baltic states, and wouldn't mind moving. I don't speak
Estonian, but I do know a bit of Finnish due to having a Finnish roommate in
university. I've long dreamed of moving to several EU nations, but every one
of the countries I could see myself living in makes it so hard to get a visa.
I'm more used to American immigration policy, which is a lot more "open door"
than the EU countries I adore.

From the little time I've spent in Finland though, I've seen a lot of this
type of attitude. People are generally happy to see visitors as long as the
visitors don't try to speak their language or talk about moving to the
country. Tallinn seems like a nice place, though.

~~~
userulluipeste
«American immigration policy, which is a lot more "open door"»

I do not now about that. My impression is that American immigration is just
more promoted (and exploited) than in other countries, not necessarily easier
or more open. It is like an industry on itself. Other countries are not that
eager to sell themselves to immigrants, which I guess it's because the general
feeling about what already belongs to locals and is not to be sold.

------
nmeofthestate
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
Interestingly, according to
[http://im.kommersant.ru/ISSUES.PHOTO/CORP/2013/02/21/dsryu4....](http://im.kommersant.ru/ISSUES.PHOTO/CORP/2013/02/21/dsryu4.gif),
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](http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2132694)

~~~
userulluipeste
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).

------
kibwen
_" 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death)

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

~~~
jeffdavis
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit)

~~~
scarmig
The Black Death or Detroit. I don't know which is worse.

I keed, I keed: many very smart people are doing really interesting things in
Detroit. It's interesting to note, though, the difference between extrinsic
and intrinsic causal factors: the Black Death significantly increased real
peasant wages and per capita wealth, likely helping the transition from a
feudal to capitalist society through dispersing capital more widely. It's a
much better situation (for the people who remain) than the Detroit case, where
it was low returns to labor that depopulated it.

Estonia is much closer to the Detroit case, it sounds like, which is not
necessarily a good thing for its future prospects.

------
MrKey
Depopulation is not a disaster. We save the world!

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

~~~
sp332
That might be this comment: "It’s true that the Baltics suffered a
particularly rapid outflow after the popping of their respective economic
bubbles".

------
vldmit
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
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.

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

~~~
slc
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.

------
dharma1
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

------
Dewie
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.

