A record number of Lithuanians left the country in 2009 in search of better economic prospects in Western Europe and North America.
I recently read an article about how the Economic Migration Commission issued a report filled with all kinds of unpleasantries directed against Lithuanians who have emigrated. This follows a trend of condemning emigrants as being unpatriotic, hurting the economy, and being detrimental to the country. Everyone appears to be obsessed with the downside of this emigration, but I happen to see a wide variety of good that it is providing for the country.
Lithuanians are afraid of becoming underpopulated, but the current figure of 3.3 million is not that small considering the size of the nation. The population density is still higher than many rich countries including the US, Canada and Australia. Having a low population density means that there are more natural resources per head for every person. I often here Europeans complain that Americans are wasteful. And it is true, but they can afford to be because they have many more resources per person than Europe. If you look at the country with the highest population density in the world (excluding city states) you would find the glorious nation of Bangladesh. I think that this speaks for itself. Having a higher population is not necessarily a good thing.
Examine what type of people are emigrating from Lithuania. While it is true that many of the educated youth are leaving because of a lack of opportunity many of the more unsavory portions of society are also leaving in droves. Talk to any Scandinavian and ask what they associate with Lithuania. You will overwhelmingly hear the response “thieves” or “criminals.” Lithuanian thieves long ago realized that there are slim pickings for their trade at home and with the free movement allowed by the EU they have left in large numbers.
There are so many Lithuanian prisoners in Norway that the government recently petitioned the Lithuanian government to take them back because it costs so much money to hold these people in prison. Lithuania is being saved the social costs in crime and the costs of prisons for all of these criminals. Of course it gives Lithuania a bad name in Europe but I could live with that for the price of not being robbed.
How does the emigration affect regular Lithuanians? It depends on who you are. If you are of working age you probably receive a net benefit from staying behind. Since a majority of the emigrants are also of working age it means that the labor pool is significantly smaller than what it should be. This drop in the supply of workers means that average wages increase. Workers may complain that they have low wages now but they would be even lower and work would be even harder to find if all the emigrants had chosen to stay.
With emigration both the emigrants and those that stay behind are better off. There is one exception to this — the pensioners. The government is collecting much less in tax revenues due to exodus and pensioner numbers are staying growing, putting a greater strain on the system. The SoDra is already heavily suffering and it can be considered a true casualty of the emigration.
However, the Lithuanians living abroad do provide economic and political support for the homeland. An obvious economic benefit of emigration is that many migrants send money back home to support their families. This brings a much-needed infusion of cash into the Lithuanian economy. If these same people chose to be unemployed at home. they would be a negative drain on the economy, using up social benefits and possibly turning to crime. Many of the migrants who live abroad find jobs in the advanced economies of the west and develop valuable skills.
Of course not all of them will come back, but those that do will facilitate a transfer of knowledge when they rejoin the work force or start their own business in their native land. Learned cultural experiences like a refusal to give and accept bribes are also valuable personal traits, which when brought back can help break the old traditions that inhibit the Land of Rain.
The political support is important, too. The strong relationship that the United States has with Lithuania can to some extent be credited with the large amount of people of Lithuanian decent living there. Ethnic politics are big business in the U.S. and has a large influence on the lone superpower’s foreign policy. A few obvious examples are the near-recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide or the massive support Israel gets.
In Sept. 2008 the Senate passed a resolution saying that Russia should recognize the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states as having been illegal. This was not the first time a resolution of this type has been passed. Political support like this is a direct result of the pressure from local Lithuanians.
If the Lithuanian government is interested in stopping emigration to preserve the Lithuanian character of the country, then it should take a look at other countries with widespread emigration in the past. All European countries have experienced emigration when times were tough, but as conditions improved this changed, and in some large numbers of immigrants began arriving. Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain are a few obvious examples that come to mind.
It seems that the real loser in this process is the one who is making the most noise — namely, the government. Tax receipts are declining and will continue to as more working age people depart. This explains why the guilt campaign for the migrants to come back, but why should they? Instead of trying to convince the migrants that they are bad Lithuanians the government should listen to the reasons why the migrants are leaving. Many people are frustrated with a system that is in many ways frustrating and inefficient.
According to the World Bank’s ”Ease of Doing Business” rank, out of 183 economies Lithuania ranked 99th on the ease of starting a business, 119th on the ease of hiring workers and 93rd for protecting investors. These are just some of the areas in which the government needs to get its act together if it really does want to induce people to stay in the country.
Aras Žirgulis, a Lithuanian-American living in Vilnius, is recent graduate of Vilnius University with a master’s degree in economics.
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Views expressed in the opinion section are never those of the Baltic Reports company or the website’s editorial team as a whole, but merely those of the individual writer.
