Excerpt from Moon of Alabama website, 11/28/24

*Prof. Geoffrey Roberts brought this to my attention – Natylie

Ukraine is losing its children. Demographers are sounding the alarm because of the mass departure of schoolchildren abroad

Experts began to talk about the second wave of emigration of Ukrainians to European countries. Now we are talking about traveling abroad for high school students, who go there not by themselves, but mainly with their parents. RegioNews found out what this threatens Ukraine in the future, given whether our country will have enough labor to restore the state after the end of the war.

Director of the distance school Vladimir Strashko published his observations on the mass departure of schoolchildren to other countries. According to him, over the past few months, he has been receiving an abnormal number of applications for completing Ukrainian schools remotely, saying that students are leaving Ukraine. Uladzimir Strashka also says that there are more and more students in the 11th grade who will not write the National Multi-Subject Test (replacing the EIT during martial law). In other words, this means that all these children do not plan to enter Ukrainian universities. Moreover, according to the director of the distance school, in some classes of Ukrainian schools, about 90% already refuse NMT.

What makes you want to leave Ukraine

Leading researcher at the Institute of Demography and Quality of Life Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lydia Tkachenko in a comment to RegioNews noted that parents decide to take their children out due to the terrible forecasts of some experts that there will be no heating or light in Ukraine.

“Therefore, parents, if they have the opportunity, try to take their children abroad, so that they, as they say, have a normal childhood at least for the period of this winter. In addition to everyday issues, there are also quite a lot of statements that almost children should already fight in the future. The general information tone greatly influences the decisions of parents, ” says Lydia Tkachenko.

At the same time, in a comment to RegioNews, Boris Krimer, a senior researcher at the Institute of Demography and Social Research, said that today it is actually very difficult to say how many people are leaving. They say that information from different sources is very different: the data from the European Union may be the same, and the data provided by the UN is also different, and from the Ukrainian border guards are completely different.

“In general, Ukrainians who take older children abroad consider it more profitable in the future, justified than staying in Ukraine. This may be related to the issue of safety, as well as forecasts for the coming winter, ” says Boris Krimer.

Will emigrants return

In general, if we take into account the mass departure of women with children after February 24, 2022, then the current outflow of Ukrainian schoolchildren abroad can already be safely called the second wave of emigration of Ukrainians. Of course, the Ukrainian state hopes that all Ukrainians will return home sooner or later, but whether this will happen en masse is a big question.

Boris Krimer, a senior researcher at the Institute of Demography and Social Research, says that whenever there is a migration flow, some people still come back.

“It all depends on how long the migration of the population will be and how much Ukrainians will take root abroad. If the fighting ends in Ukraine and it becomes safe, economic development begins, then at least some of the emigrants can be expected to return. I hope that Ukraine will still join the European Union and then it will be so that we will have one free space for the movement of people, ” says Creamer.

In turn, Lidia Tkachenko, a leading researcher at the Institute of Demography and Quality of Life Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, notes that if there are many jobs in Ukraine with normal pay and working conditions, then of course Ukrainians who have left abroad will have more incentives to return to Ukraine.

“But many Ukrainians abroad now choose not even large fortunes and opportunities, but simply the opportunity to live in peace without explosions of all sorts and the like. For many, the sense of security may even outweigh the opportunity to get a position in Ukraine or a lot of money, ” says Lydia Tkachenko.

There is also a lot of discussion about how long it takes for Ukrainians to take root in the same Europe, after which they will not return to Ukraine. According to Borys Krimer, on the one hand, this is very individual, because even a year is enough for someone to take root, but of course, the longer a person stays abroad, the less desire they have to return to Ukraine later.

“For example, in the first year of a full-scale war, we estimated that 50% of those who went abroad would remain there, and 50% would still return. Then we focused on a variety of surveys. Today, the share of those who will not return is more than 50%, but this is again a situational thought. If, for example, the economic situation in the country where a particular Ukrainian is located worsens, he will be ready to return home. But the vector is really such that the longer people live in another country, the more they will have new connections, the more children will get used to kindergarten or school. As a result, they are less likely to return to Ukraine, ” Borys Krimer sums up.

What can be the consequences of population outflow

Experts say that in any case, the consequences of the war for Ukraine will be terrible, because in some places the impact of military operations in countries can last even 50 years after their completion.

According to Lydia Tkachenko, it is now very difficult to make any demographic forecasts for Ukraine.

“Previously, everything was calculated based on the birth rate and mortality, and migration did not significantly affect this. For example, since the beginning of the zero years, the migration growth was already small, but with the beginning of a full — scale war, migration flows, of course, have increased very much,” the expert says.

She confirms that there will still be a large percentage of those Ukrainians who do not want to return to Ukraine, and there may also be such a problem that as soon as the borders are opened, many men may still leave, not only those who already have a wife and children abroad, but also men who have survived the war. war is very stressful. Lydia Tkachenko emphasizes that this will be the loss of the young population, which can still work for the development of Ukraine for a long time. That is, the state will gradually lose the necessary amount of labor, and there will be no one to replace it. Relatively speaking, today high school students in 5-7 years should replace in the labor market those Ukrainians who are now of pre-retirement age. If students continue to leave the country en masse and do not return, then those who retire will have no one to replace them in the labor market.

As a result, Ukraine risks facing another problem — there will be fewer working citizens than the same pensioners. For example, even before the full-scale war in Ukraine, there was about one working citizen per pensioner. That is, in fact, we can say that one employee withheld one pensioner at the expense of his taxes. Lydia Tkachenko says that while this ratio still remains, if Ukrainians continue to go abroad en masse, in particular, high school students who will later be able to work, the situation will worsen. If this trend continues, then sooner or later, relatively speaking, there will already be two or three pensioners per person working in Ukraine. But according to experts, no pension system can withstand such a load, and therefore we will have to resort to drastic measures. For example, raise the retirement age.

https://regionews.ua/ukr/articles/1730982278-ukrayina-vtrachae-ditey-demografi-b-yut-trivogu-cherez-masoviy-viyizd-shkolyariv-za-kordon (via translation add-on.)

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Nov 28 2024 20:32 utc | 85