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ARMENIA'S POPULATION DRAIN AND THE DIASPORA: DE WAAL
epress.am
11.21.2011
It happened twenty-three years ago next month, but Armenia's second
city Gyumri has never fully recovered from the devastating earthquake
of 1988. A full 8 percent of the population perished in the quake.
Local newspaper editor Levon Barsegyan, serving as my tour guide in
Gyumri last week, proudly pointed out the elegant black-stoned houses
for which this former imperial Russian town is famous. But he also
pointed out the old market building, which is still a ruin - in fact
Soviet buildings collapsed while older structures stayed up. And he
told me that six thousand families are still living in the makeshift
"temporary" accommodation the Soviet government provided for them
back then, writes Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace Thomas de Waal in The National Interest.
But there is a more insidious problem in Gyumri, more visible in a town
like this than in Armenia's capital Yerevan, or for that matter any
of the metropolitan cities of the former Soviet Union. Many of these
apartment blocks are half-empty. Thousands of people have simply gone.
Even as the world marked the birth of its seven billionth person last
month, a few countries are confronting the problem of insufficient
population. A majority of them are post-communist countries. In some,
like Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the problem is low birth rates
that aren't replenishing demographic stocks. In others, the problem
is emigration, a drain on population.
This problem has hit Central Asia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, where
young men in particular and rural youth in general head off, mainly
to Russia, to find work. But two countries are particularly hard-hit:
Moldova and Armenia.
Migration from Armenia in absolute numbers is probably no worse than
from its two South Caucasian neighbors, Azerbaijan and Georgia. But the
country's smaller size makes it a much more critical issue. The last
Soviet census put the population at 3.3 million, two-thirds urban and
one-third rural. Half of that rural population may now have emigrated
in search of work, plus considerable numbers of urban dwellers too.
The last official census in 2001 put Armenia's population at just over
three million. Most people believe it is a lot worse than that. The
drop in numbers came despite the fact that as many as 400,000 people
entered Armenia in 1989-92, either refugees from the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict with Azerbaijan or emigres from the Middle East. But it
seems few of those people stayed. Around a million people may have
left the country since the end of the Soviet period.
A 2009 Gallup poll conducted among twelve post-Soviet countries
presents gloomy data for both Moldova and Armenia. Moldova came first
and Armenia second in the number of people saying they would like to
move abroad for temporary work (53 and 44 percent respectively).
Armenia won dubious first place ahead of Moldova in the number
saying they would like to move abroad permanently (39 and 36 percent
respectively).
Armenia is a small, landlocked country, still suffering the economic
impact of its unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan. But the problem
is compounded by the fact that twice as many Armenians live in the
worldwide diaspora as inside, and they draw their relatives abroad.
And Armenians are traditionally mobile: it is likely that the emigres'
grandparents fled massacres in Anatolia in 1915 or emigrated from
the Middle East to Soviet Armenia.
Now the issue is causing problems with Armenia's main ally, Russia.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan publicly expressed worry over the
Russian government's scheme, entitled Compatriots, to give thousands
of Armenians the promise of citizenship and work if they move to
depopulated parts of Siberia. In effect, one ally is resolving its
demographic problems at the expense of another.
Opposition supporters I spoke to in Armenia argue that the government
has no interest in stemming emigration. It acts as a pressure valve
against the kind of disgruntled masses who can undermine governmental
authority, they say, and allows authorities to produce inflated
electoral rolls so they can falsify election outcomes more easily.
Moreover, remittances help keep the country afloat. World Bank
estimates from 2010 said that 9 percent of Armenia's GDP came from
remittances.
But it's difficult to see the country developing while it is sapped by
emigration. The rural economy is a subsistence one. It is a constant
strain to maintain an 80,000-strong army to confront Azerbaijan when
the stock of 18-year-old men, born in the early 1990s, is so low.
Perhaps the only silver lining is that if Armenia does begin to solve
its manifold economic and political problems, there is a huge diaspora
out there that has used these fallow years to get better education
and training than they could have received in Armenia. If and when
Armenia does turn a corner in its national development, these people
- re-emigrants, let's call them - will be in the vanguard of that
new story.
epress.am
11.21.2011
It happened twenty-three years ago next month, but Armenia's second
city Gyumri has never fully recovered from the devastating earthquake
of 1988. A full 8 percent of the population perished in the quake.
Local newspaper editor Levon Barsegyan, serving as my tour guide in
Gyumri last week, proudly pointed out the elegant black-stoned houses
for which this former imperial Russian town is famous. But he also
pointed out the old market building, which is still a ruin - in fact
Soviet buildings collapsed while older structures stayed up. And he
told me that six thousand families are still living in the makeshift
"temporary" accommodation the Soviet government provided for them
back then, writes Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace Thomas de Waal in The National Interest.
But there is a more insidious problem in Gyumri, more visible in a town
like this than in Armenia's capital Yerevan, or for that matter any
of the metropolitan cities of the former Soviet Union. Many of these
apartment blocks are half-empty. Thousands of people have simply gone.
Even as the world marked the birth of its seven billionth person last
month, a few countries are confronting the problem of insufficient
population. A majority of them are post-communist countries. In some,
like Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the problem is low birth rates
that aren't replenishing demographic stocks. In others, the problem
is emigration, a drain on population.
This problem has hit Central Asia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, where
young men in particular and rural youth in general head off, mainly
to Russia, to find work. But two countries are particularly hard-hit:
Moldova and Armenia.
Migration from Armenia in absolute numbers is probably no worse than
from its two South Caucasian neighbors, Azerbaijan and Georgia. But the
country's smaller size makes it a much more critical issue. The last
Soviet census put the population at 3.3 million, two-thirds urban and
one-third rural. Half of that rural population may now have emigrated
in search of work, plus considerable numbers of urban dwellers too.
The last official census in 2001 put Armenia's population at just over
three million. Most people believe it is a lot worse than that. The
drop in numbers came despite the fact that as many as 400,000 people
entered Armenia in 1989-92, either refugees from the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict with Azerbaijan or emigres from the Middle East. But it
seems few of those people stayed. Around a million people may have
left the country since the end of the Soviet period.
A 2009 Gallup poll conducted among twelve post-Soviet countries
presents gloomy data for both Moldova and Armenia. Moldova came first
and Armenia second in the number of people saying they would like to
move abroad for temporary work (53 and 44 percent respectively).
Armenia won dubious first place ahead of Moldova in the number
saying they would like to move abroad permanently (39 and 36 percent
respectively).
Armenia is a small, landlocked country, still suffering the economic
impact of its unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan. But the problem
is compounded by the fact that twice as many Armenians live in the
worldwide diaspora as inside, and they draw their relatives abroad.
And Armenians are traditionally mobile: it is likely that the emigres'
grandparents fled massacres in Anatolia in 1915 or emigrated from
the Middle East to Soviet Armenia.
Now the issue is causing problems with Armenia's main ally, Russia.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan publicly expressed worry over the
Russian government's scheme, entitled Compatriots, to give thousands
of Armenians the promise of citizenship and work if they move to
depopulated parts of Siberia. In effect, one ally is resolving its
demographic problems at the expense of another.
Opposition supporters I spoke to in Armenia argue that the government
has no interest in stemming emigration. It acts as a pressure valve
against the kind of disgruntled masses who can undermine governmental
authority, they say, and allows authorities to produce inflated
electoral rolls so they can falsify election outcomes more easily.
Moreover, remittances help keep the country afloat. World Bank
estimates from 2010 said that 9 percent of Armenia's GDP came from
remittances.
But it's difficult to see the country developing while it is sapped by
emigration. The rural economy is a subsistence one. It is a constant
strain to maintain an 80,000-strong army to confront Azerbaijan when
the stock of 18-year-old men, born in the early 1990s, is so low.
Perhaps the only silver lining is that if Armenia does begin to solve
its manifold economic and political problems, there is a huge diaspora
out there that has used these fallow years to get better education
and training than they could have received in Armenia. If and when
Armenia does turn a corner in its national development, these people
- re-emigrants, let's call them - will be in the vanguard of that
new story.