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rfmcdonaldAt least since mercantilism, population has been seen as an area of public life that should be controlled for the good of wider society: Are there enough people? Is the population growing quickly enough? Is it healthy enough? Is it educated enough? Does it have an acceptable (ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious) composition? Even today, for instance, the relatively low fertility rates prevalent in the developed world outside of the United States are regularly cited to demonstrate the corruption of non-Americans. Steven Denbeste described Europe as
(Incidentally, it's curious how this echoes some rhetoric of the 1930s. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma have noted in the New York Review of Books how Oswald Spengler was of the view that
I've more than enough faith in the United States that the 1930s won't parallel our current decade too closely. The echoes are unfortunate, though, to put it mildly. But enougb of this.)
Migration--particularly emigration--is a sensitive area of population policies. If people want to come to a country, that's all well and good, proof of their intended destination's inherent attractiveness. If people want to leave a country, though, whether because they want to enjoy a better standard of living abroad ("pull" migration) or because they want to escape suffering at home ("push" migration) or because of a combination of the two factors, this can be seen as speaking volumes about a country's long-term sustainability. For instance, the large volume of Canadian emigration to the United States after Confederation--most visibly French Canadians but including Canadians of all ethnolinguistic backgrounds (PDF format)--was often used by Americans to justify Canada's extinction. ("Pull" migration seems to have been the dominant factor in this Canadian emigration: Canada might have been among the richest countries in the world, but the United States was richer still, with an economy having many more openings for factory workers at the turn of the century than Canada. Newfoundland's was a different situation.)
In the First and Second Worlds, emigration has arguably had the most spectacular impact on the former Soviet Union. The demand for Jewish emigration rights from the Soviet Union bedevilled Cold War relations and, when granted, signified the success of Gorbachev's liberalization. The political disintegration of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed ethnic tensions, and the uneven collapses and recoveries of different post-Soviet national economies has made migration in the Soviet era an important issue, whether we are talking of Ukrainian emigration to points worldwide, continuing Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, or mass migration to Russia.
One issue with serious ramifications on the viability of some post-Soviet states is the mass emigration from the independent states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. This past January, I'd made a brief note about demographic trends in the Armenian diaspora. The most spectacular of these trends is the mass emigration from post-Soviet Armenia, as at least one million Armenians have left the Caucasus ahead of war and economic collapse. Armenia and Armenians, however, are far from being unique in what looks like a veritable depopulation of the region.
Jean-Christophe Peuch, writing for RRE/RL, observed that the numbers of ethnic Russians have dropped catastrophically throughout the region:
Falling living standards and war have conntributed to this mass emigration. Just as important for South Caucasus Russians, however, is the shift to local languages from Russian, as Russian-language schools close down and other foreign languages (English or Turkish, say) become important language of foreign communication gain ground. With a two-thirds collapse in the past decade, the future of Russians in the South Caucasus is fairly dim.
Paradoxically, the decline Official statistics report a population of some 7.8 million. However, in the RFE/RL article "Has Azerbaijan's Population Shrunk By 40 Percent?" (page down), St. Petersburg scholar Aleksandr Arsen'ev suggested in 1999 that Azerbaijani census data might have been fabricated:
This seems to be confirmed by recent data. In 1989, there were some 335 thousand Azerbaijanis living within the territory of the future Russian Federation. Now, there are rather more, 2.16 million recorded by the 2002 census with strong probabilities of undercounting due to illegal emigration and the naturalization of many Azerbaijanis. Further, Sergey Rumyantsev observed in the publication Azerbaijan Today that emigration had a major effect in Azerbaijan:
This massive emigration has major effects on the internal distribution of population in Azerbaijan:
In the meantime, Georgia has hardly been immune. In 1989, there were 130 thousand Georgians living within the future Russian Federation. As Zaal Anjaparidze noted, "[During] the Soviet period [ethnic Georgians] tended to "stay home," while representatives of many other ethnic groups came and left Georgia. According to the 1979 All-Union Population Census, 96.5 percent of ethnic Georgians in the USSR lived in Georgia." Following Georgian independence, and consequent economic collapses and three civil wars (one in all of Georgia, two ethnic civil wars in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, however, emigration began. At first, emigration characterized members of ethnic minorities:
This emigration, however, quickly moved beyond ethnic minorities to include the ethnic Georgian majority:
Georgia's January 2002 census reveals that partly as a result of this emigration, the country's population has fallen by 1.1 million--20%--since 1989, with perhaps another quarter-million people in independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As the country's population continues to contract sharply while Georgia's economy remains painfully underdeveloped, Georgia's demographic prospects aren't likely to improve.
This emigration is important because of the impact it will have on receiving countries, of which Russia is far and away the most important: If large Georgian and Azerbaijani diasporas are able to maintain strong group identities in Russia, this could conceivably impact Russian domestic trends and foreign policies. Putin, after all, is trying to become a patron of Armenians.
More important than the impact of South Caucasian mass emigration on receiving nations, however, is the impact on the sending nations. This mass emigration, having as it does a disproportionately large impact on the South Caucasus' working-age population, and on the South Caucasus' educated population, can seriously impact the economic viability of the South Caucasus in the world economy. The future growth of the Italian economy--currently sixth-largest in the developed world--could be limited by a low fertility rate alone. (The balance of Italian migration, perhaps fortunately, is entirely positive; the emigration that characterized Italy until the 1970s has stopped.) Massive emigration, coupled with low birth rates, could easily help beggar the small and exposed economies of the South Caucasus. A depopulated and impoverished South Caucasus could definitely be a destabilizing factor in the region as a whole--failed states have a tendency to do that.
And the pity of this whole situation is that there's no reassuring answer ahead. The countries of the South Caucasus have a long way to go and quite a lot to do before they regain their Soviet-era standards of living, never mind take part in the convergence with the First World enjoyed in the EU's soon-to-be member-states in central Europe. In the meantime, larger and wealthier economies--like Russia, like western and central Europe, like North America--will continue to attract emigrants from the South Caucasus who want a better life. Blocking legal mechanisms for this migration can't be justified on either humanitarian or practical grounds, since this would only push it further into the shadowy realms of illegal migration. Perhaps things can change for the better, but it wouldn't be sound to bet on this.
1. decadent: characterized by decadence, overrefinement, or overindulgence
2. weak: lacking or having lost the strength or ability to get things done
3. barren: no longer able to reproduce
(Incidentally, it's curious how this echoes some rhetoric of the 1930s. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma have noted in the New York Review of Books how Oswald Spengler was of the view that
the ruling white races (Herrenvölker) were losing their position in Europe. Soon, he said, true Frenchmen would no longer rule France, which was already awash with black soldiers, Polish businessmen, and Spanish farmers. The West, he concluded, would go under because white people had become soft, decadent, addicted to safety and comfort. As he put it: "Jazz music and nigger dances are the death march of a great civilization."
I've more than enough faith in the United States that the 1930s won't parallel our current decade too closely. The echoes are unfortunate, though, to put it mildly. But enougb of this.)
Migration--particularly emigration--is a sensitive area of population policies. If people want to come to a country, that's all well and good, proof of their intended destination's inherent attractiveness. If people want to leave a country, though, whether because they want to enjoy a better standard of living abroad ("pull" migration) or because they want to escape suffering at home ("push" migration) or because of a combination of the two factors, this can be seen as speaking volumes about a country's long-term sustainability. For instance, the large volume of Canadian emigration to the United States after Confederation--most visibly French Canadians but including Canadians of all ethnolinguistic backgrounds (PDF format)--was often used by Americans to justify Canada's extinction. ("Pull" migration seems to have been the dominant factor in this Canadian emigration: Canada might have been among the richest countries in the world, but the United States was richer still, with an economy having many more openings for factory workers at the turn of the century than Canada. Newfoundland's was a different situation.)
In the First and Second Worlds, emigration has arguably had the most spectacular impact on the former Soviet Union. The demand for Jewish emigration rights from the Soviet Union bedevilled Cold War relations and, when granted, signified the success of Gorbachev's liberalization. The political disintegration of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed ethnic tensions, and the uneven collapses and recoveries of different post-Soviet national economies has made migration in the Soviet era an important issue, whether we are talking of Ukrainian emigration to points worldwide, continuing Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, or mass migration to Russia.
One issue with serious ramifications on the viability of some post-Soviet states is the mass emigration from the independent states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. This past January, I'd made a brief note about demographic trends in the Armenian diaspora. The most spectacular of these trends is the mass emigration from post-Soviet Armenia, as at least one million Armenians have left the Caucasus ahead of war and economic collapse. Armenia and Armenians, however, are far from being unique in what looks like a veritable depopulation of the region.
Jean-Christophe Peuch, writing for RRE/RL, observed that the numbers of ethnic Russians have dropped catastrophically throughout the region:
According to the last Soviet census -- conducted in 1989 -- there were 392,000 ethnic Russians in Azerbaijan and 52,000 in Armenia. Today, the number of ethnic Russians in those countries reportedly stands at just 142,000 and 12,000 -- or just 1.8 percent and 0.4 percent of the total population respectively.
Results of a 2002 population census published this month show that Georgia -- the most ethnically diverse of the three South Caucasus nations -- has only 75,000 Russians left, compared with 350,000 in 1989.
Falling living standards and war have conntributed to this mass emigration. Just as important for South Caucasus Russians, however, is the shift to local languages from Russian, as Russian-language schools close down and other foreign languages (English or Turkish, say) become important language of foreign communication gain ground. With a two-thirds collapse in the past decade, the future of Russians in the South Caucasus is fairly dim.
Paradoxically, the decline Official statistics report a population of some 7.8 million. However, in the RFE/RL article "Has Azerbaijan's Population Shrunk By 40 Percent?" (page down), St. Petersburg scholar Aleksandr Arsen'ev suggested in 1999 that Azerbaijani census data might have been fabricated:
Arsen'ev seeks to demonstrate that the published results of the population census conducted in Azerbaijan in January-February of this year were fabricated, and that country has suffered the largest decline in its population of the three South Caucasus states. According to the census data, Azerbaijan's population currently numbers 7.953 million. The study takes as its starting point the population of Azerbaijan on 1 January 1988, which was 7 million. In the course of 1988-1990, the entire Armenian population of Azerbaijan, numbering about half a million, were driven out or fled. A similar number of Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and Tatars left in the late 1980s and early 1990s: of the 392,000 Russians living in the republic at the time of the 1989 Soviet census, less than 75,000 now remain, according to the chairman of Azerbaijan's Russian Community.
Arsen'ev concludes that as a result of the outmigration of a large proportion of the non-indigenous population, Azerbaijan lost no less than 1.2 million inhabitants during the decade 1989-1999. But in addition, since the demise of the USSR, up to 3 million Azerbaijanis have also left their native country: the number of Azerbaijanis resident in the Russian Federation is currently between 2-2.5 million. Specifically, the Azerbaijani population of the city of Moscow and Moscow Oblast is now 1.2 million, compared with 21,000 in 1989. Sizable numbers of Azerbaijanis have also moved to Ukraine and Turkey.
The Russian scholar estimates total outmigration of Azerbaijanis in recent years at no less than 3 million. He thus deduces that, allowing for modest natural population increase over the past decade, the country's current population cannot possibly exceed 4 million.
This seems to be confirmed by recent data. In 1989, there were some 335 thousand Azerbaijanis living within the territory of the future Russian Federation. Now, there are rather more, 2.16 million recorded by the 2002 census with strong probabilities of undercounting due to illegal emigration and the naturalization of many Azerbaijanis. Further, Sergey Rumyantsev observed in the publication Azerbaijan Today that emigration had a major effect in Azerbaijan:
Many young people who haven't yet married leave the republic. They leave looking for better job prospects, as current work prospects in Azerbaijan are limited and will probably remain so in the near future. The migration process began between 1988-90, when citizens of non-Azeri nationality left. According to information from the Embassy of the Russian Federation, 220,000 people left Azerbaijan to Russia during that period. Later, when the fighting with Armenia stopped, Azeris became the dominant nationality leaving Azerbaijan.
During the first years of mass emigration, people went to other countries to escape from the political unrest in the republic. Later, emigration was caused by the hard economic situation. Many people left to Iran and Turkey. Some people succeeded in getting to western Europe and north America while others went to other developed regions. However, the basic flow of emigration still goes to the CIS countries, particularly Russia. The advantages of the CIS countries are that there are no language problems and people can use their old contacts and relationships that they established during the Soviet period.
Today, the main Diaspora of Azerbaijanies - about 1 million people - is located in the Moscow region. Large groups of Azerbaijanies live also in Saint-Petersburg region, Siberia, Far East and all over Russia. Many of our compatriots have already obtained Russian citizenship, made families, and have no intention to return to their native land. Many of them never return and encourage their relatives who still live Azerbaijan to follow them. Approximately 2 to 3 million citizens of Azerbaijan live in Russia (not official data), although it is impossible to calculate their number accurately because when departing from Azerbaijan, they do not inform officials. It is for this reason that official statistics are unreliable and cannot be used to make an evaluation that reflects the true situation.
In January 2000, Azerbaijan had an official population of 8,016,000, although this figure could actually be less than 5 million. It must be considered that those leaving are mostly young, unmarried men. This factor creates another problem for the near future - an imbalance in the sexes at reproductive age.
This massive emigration has major effects on the internal distribution of population in Azerbaijan:
The situation in Azerbaijan is more complicated as we have the inner migration as well. Those who fail to leave for other countries, flock to the capital Baku, which is supposedly the only settlement where one can probably find work. As a result, the majority of Azerbaijan's citizens now live on the Absheron peninsula where the density of the population is 840 persons per square kilometre. The countryside is becoming increasingly underpopulated, while the inhabitants of Baku are experiencing regular problems of overpopulation - electricity supply, water deficit, ecological disorder.
In the meantime, Georgia has hardly been immune. In 1989, there were 130 thousand Georgians living within the future Russian Federation. As Zaal Anjaparidze noted, "[During] the Soviet period [ethnic Georgians] tended to "stay home," while representatives of many other ethnic groups came and left Georgia. According to the 1979 All-Union Population Census, 96.5 percent of ethnic Georgians in the USSR lived in Georgia." Following Georgian independence, and consequent economic collapses and three civil wars (one in all of Georgia, two ethnic civil wars in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, however, emigration began. At first, emigration characterized members of ethnic minorities:
The urban Slavs (ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusans) who had settled in Georgia in the Soviet period were the first to emigrate. Many representatives of this ethnic group were either in the military or were civilians working for the military. According to calculations made by various institutions in charge of migration and demographic problems, Slavs accounted for more than 60 percent of all emigrants in 1992. Most of them (88.5 percent) were city dwellers and moved to cities in the Russian Federation.
The second largest group of emigrants were the Azeris, who lived primarily in rural areas. More than a quarter of the Azeris who left Georgia in 1992 emigrated to Russia, while the rest moved to their historical homeland, Azerbaijan. The third largest group -- the Armenians -- lived predominantly in cities. According to official figures, 56.2 percent of the Armenians emigrated to Russia, just under a quarter moved to Armenia, and the rest moved to other former Soviet republics. Many Armenians emigrated to outside the former Soviet Union -- mostly to the United States.
This emigration, however, quickly moved beyond ethnic minorities to include the ethnic Georgian majority:
The balance of external migration is of utmost interest. Some in the media speculate that "more than a million people have emigrated from Georgia." They cite information collected by non-governmental bodies which shows that from 1990 to 1996, 378,000 people immigrated to Georgia, while 1,384,000 emigrated from the country. These emigrants included: 550,000 ethnic Georgians, 230,000 Armenians, 200,000 Russians, 170,000 Azeris, 75,000 Ossetians, 75,000 Greeks, and 85,000 members of other ethnic groups. Researchers from these non-governmental bodies say that government emigration numbers are deliberately understated.
Georgia's January 2002 census reveals that partly as a result of this emigration, the country's population has fallen by 1.1 million--20%--since 1989, with perhaps another quarter-million people in independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. As the country's population continues to contract sharply while Georgia's economy remains painfully underdeveloped, Georgia's demographic prospects aren't likely to improve.
This emigration is important because of the impact it will have on receiving countries, of which Russia is far and away the most important: If large Georgian and Azerbaijani diasporas are able to maintain strong group identities in Russia, this could conceivably impact Russian domestic trends and foreign policies. Putin, after all, is trying to become a patron of Armenians.
More important than the impact of South Caucasian mass emigration on receiving nations, however, is the impact on the sending nations. This mass emigration, having as it does a disproportionately large impact on the South Caucasus' working-age population, and on the South Caucasus' educated population, can seriously impact the economic viability of the South Caucasus in the world economy. The future growth of the Italian economy--currently sixth-largest in the developed world--could be limited by a low fertility rate alone. (The balance of Italian migration, perhaps fortunately, is entirely positive; the emigration that characterized Italy until the 1970s has stopped.) Massive emigration, coupled with low birth rates, could easily help beggar the small and exposed economies of the South Caucasus. A depopulated and impoverished South Caucasus could definitely be a destabilizing factor in the region as a whole--failed states have a tendency to do that.
And the pity of this whole situation is that there's no reassuring answer ahead. The countries of the South Caucasus have a long way to go and quite a lot to do before they regain their Soviet-era standards of living, never mind take part in the convergence with the First World enjoyed in the EU's soon-to-be member-states in central Europe. In the meantime, larger and wealthier economies--like Russia, like western and central Europe, like North America--will continue to attract emigrants from the South Caucasus who want a better life. Blocking legal mechanisms for this migration can't be justified on either humanitarian or practical grounds, since this would only push it further into the shadowy realms of illegal migration. Perhaps things can change for the better, but it wouldn't be sound to bet on this.
