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Expertseminar LABOUR MIGRATION IN THE BALTIC SEA COUNTRIES: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS 25 April 2013 Constitutional Hall, Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, Gedimino av. 53, Vilnius
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Population Change and Migrations in Lithuania: Trends
and Hidden Processes
Donatas Burneika Lithuanian Social Research Centre
Rūta Ubarevičienė
Lithuanian Social Research Centre Delft University of Technology
The aim and objectives
The aim is to reveal the main trends of the transformations of the Lithuanian settlement network in the context of migration processes.
The main objectives – analysis of population change, “official” and hidden migrations and their causes as well as some consequences of these proceses
Emigration – finding out hidden reasons
• Unemployment, wage differences, bad or good images of places and all other reasons of migrations are well known, but they do not explain the exceptional scale of the process in Lithuania.
• Why Lithuanian are so exceptionally “emigrable”, though economy of the country is not exceptionally bad?
Emigration – finding out hidden reasons
• Answers may be related to the reasons, which are being analysed quite rare.
• They theoretically could be related to exceptional “mind” or “consciousness” of our citizens, always perceiving that grass is much greener in your neighbours yard. But we don’t have serious proof of somewhat strange brain structure of Lithuanians…
• So what is exceptional in Lithuania, comparing to other countries, causing such a will or need to leave your place?
Present trends – consequences of spatial structure of Lithuanian society
• Any society has more or less optimum spatial structure according to its state of development and geographical structure of the country.
• Changing society means changing spatial structure and therefore movement of population. So understanding migrations is difficult ignoring processes of transformations of society.
• Foreign migrations (emigration, namely) should not be analysed and could not be fully understood ignoring migrational processes inside the country, because these two processes are interrelated.
Urbanisation and metropolisation
• Redistribution of population from rural areas to urban and especially to metropolitan regions is absolutely natural process happening in all developing countries, because rural jobs are shrinking few times due to technological changes, while best jobs are concentrated in biggest metropolitan areas due to the comparative advantages they can offer.
• Therefore many (and in some places the most) Lithuanians have got no option between to emigrate or not. They do only have option where to?
Unique Lithuanian settlement system –historical and geographical heritage
• Historical reasons determined creation of second capital city (Kaunas) and geographical reasons raised the Klaipėda (Lithuania is the only state in the region with the peripheral capital, which is not sea port).
• Prevention of the development of the biggest cities, especially Vilnius, and expansion of medium sized towns into cities, giving them regional functions was carried out in the Soviet era. This created network of medium size cities.
• It worked O.K. in the society without competition, but none of the other European state of similar composition have evolved such a uniform urban system, without dominant metropolitan area, which would serve as a main economic axis of the country and compete with similar ones abroad.
Settlement system of Lithuania – result of exceptional historical and geographical circumsatnaces as well as unique
spatial planning
10 biggest cities in Baltic countries Lithuania – was (is) the only small or medium size country in Europe without clear dominance of one metropolitan region
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Lithuania
Latvia
Estija
Transformation of space as a consequence of transformation of society
• Emigration, and especially scale of emigration partly could be perceived as another negative heritage of the Soviet regime.
• Post-soviet transformations together with processes of globalisation and Europeanization have been transforming Lithuanian society.
• So, emigration (apart from other reasons) is a continuation of “suspended” processes of urbanisation and metropolitisation. It is a natural process, which gained “unnatural”, exceptional character due to the deminishing political, economic and “mental” borders and exceptional socio-spatial structure of the country.
• Therefore, there are very few possibilities to stop this process, but maybe it could be regulated by changing the destinations of those leaving their hometowns.
The result – differences of GVA per capita (2009)
General trend - population increase 1959-1989 - population decrease 1989-2001
Regional differences of population change 1989-2011
Tendencies of metropolization 2001 - 2011
Total population change in Lithuanian cities and LAU2 regions 2001 – 2011
Trends of the metropolization will be expressed more by shrinkage of secondary cities than by expansion of capital city-region
Pace of emigration from municipalities in 2001 – 2012
Migrations from municipalities to other destinations in Lithuania
Emigration from municipalities to foreign countries. Cities dominate – instead of becoming the final destination points
for emigrants, their become a transit points
Approximate number of labour migrants and their origin in the biggest cities in 2012 (hidden migration is of the same scale as
official)
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
Vilnius Kaunas Klaipėda Šiauliai Panevėžys Alytus
Other
Alytus
Panevėžys
Šiauliai
Klaipėda
Kaunas
Vilnius
Destination of labour migrations to the city municipalities
Gathered income tax and proportion of population in municipalities
I. Result of depopulation – spread of sparsely populated regions in Lithuania
II. Change of number of pupils in schools of general education in 2001 – 2011
Change of number of schools of general education in 2001 – 2011
Empty “central kolchoz settlements”
The city sprawl
Expansion of Vilnius city region in 1990 and 2011 – result of internal migrations and poor regional planning
Simplified structure of Vilnius city (functional) region
Foreign migration – why Scandinavia?
Economic “Scandinavisation” of Eastern Baltics is more than obvious. This process ends within state borders of Baltic
countries.
Foreign direct investments in Lithuania
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
30000000
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Russia
Scandinavia
Central Western Europe
• Natural processes of depopulation of rural areas related to continuation of delayed urbanisation will persist in Lithuania and in surrounding countries. It will be making negative impact on local population first of all by damaging their expectation and hopes, but not their incomes or living standards.
• Such trends will continue to fuel both inner and foreign migrations. Developing business contacts and other relations with Scandinavian countries will guarantee that Nordic dimension of foreign emigration will be dominating.
Conclusions
• The state policy in such new sparsely populated areas should concentrate not on preservation of number of population or existing service networks or hausing facilities, but on adoption of these to new reality.
• Strengthening local communities and local self-governing, improving communication networks, simplification of land use conversion procedures, disseminating objective information of on-going processes and other similar actions would make much more effective influence on the prosperity and life satisfaction of local population.
Conclusions
• Metropolization in Lithuania will not reach the degree of other countries of the Baltic sea region and remaining Europe. The difference of on-going socio-economic changes and transformations of settlement structure will cause various social, economic and psychological tensions in Lithuania.
• Such a situation and inherited polycentrism of the country will cause bigger emigration flows than in the other post-socialist countries. The management of the urban network should be based on the idea of solidarity and unity, but not on the uniform settlement network of the country.
Conclusions
Thank you for your attention!