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Minorities on the move? Assessing post-enlargement emigration intentions of Latvia’s Russian speaking minority

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Abstract

Are ethnic minorities more likely to emigrate from the new EU Member States? Who are the potential minority and majority migrants? This paper studies emigration intentions of the Russian speaking minority in Latvia after the 2004 EU enlargement. Using a survey on emigration intentions conducted in 2005, I show that the minority is more likely to emigrate than the majority. For the Russian speakers, higher education levels tend to be associated with higher probability of emigration, suggesting a minority brain drain. These findings can be explained by (1) linguistic and citizenship policies potentially disadvantaging Russian speakers in the Latvian labour market; (2) family migration capital; and (3) low acceptance of the way in which minority education is provided.

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Notes

  1. The share of ethnic minorities varies from 1.2 % in Poland to 41 % in Latvia. Romania hosts the highest absolute population of minorities (2,310,000) among the new EU Members States. Source: author’s calculations based on Predan (2004).

  2. The official average yearly emigration rate (the number of emigrants as % of total population) has been as follows: 1.46 % in 1991–1994; 0.46 % in 1995–1999; 0.20 % in 2000–2003; and 0.24 % in 2004–2010 (source: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia). The official emigration statistics significantly underestimate actual work emigration as people going for work abroad do not have to inform the state authorities about their move. It is also not possible to disaggregate the publically available statistics on emigration by migrants’ ethnicity. The high emigration rate in early 1990s reflects the ethnic return migration (predominantly) to the Russian Federation.

  3. See SKDS (2005) for the survey report.

  4. The share of non-citizens in Latvian population decreased from 25 % in 1994 (when the status was introduced) to 15 % in 2011 (source: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia). To acquire the Latvian citizenship, the applicant must pass the exams of the State language, history, and constitution. The process of naturalisation takes on average 8 months (source: Naturalisation Board of the Republic of Latvia, www.np.gov.lv).

  5. In addition, up until 2007, the non-citizens needed visas for travel in the EU countries. In 2007 the non-citizens obtained the right to travel visa-free within the Schengen area, but they still need work permits to work in the EU countries.

  6. A widening male wage gap in favour of native-speaking population has also been reported in Estonia (Leping and Toomet 2007), a country which adopted very similar linguistic and citizenship legislation vis-à-vis the Russian speaking minority.

  7. The ethnically divided education system as well as high concentration of the Russian speaking minority in particular localities (the capital, big cities, the Latgale region) could explain why there has been limited linguistic integration in Latvia.

  8. In Latvia, a person’s official ethnic origin (tautība in Latvian) cannot be different from that of his or her parents; if the parents have different ethnicity, the person can choose. Until 2000, the ethnic origin appeared in the main identification document (passport); after 2000 one could choose whether to indicate ethnicity in the passport (but it still has to be recorded in the State Population Register).

  9. In 2006, 21.7 % of ethnic Latvian men and 19.9 % of ethnic Latvian women were married to ethnic non-Latvians. Source: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, www.csb.gov.lv.

  10. Respondents were asked: ‘Thinking about work migration abroad, what would be your preferred destination?’

  11. Given that Table 2 reports unconditional means, this does not contradict with the finding of Hazans (2005) that the earnings of the minority are higher than the earnings of the majority. Regressing the average monthly income per family member (the variable which is the closest proxy for individual earnings in our survey) on the respondents’ linguistic background, other observable socio-demographic characteristics, and district fixed effects also reveals a premium of 13 LVL (significant at 10 %) for the majority.

  12. Note, again, that because Table 2 reports unconditional means, this does not necessarily contradict Hazans (2005) who finds that the minorities in Latvia are more likely to become unemployed and to be overrepresented among the long-term unemployed.

  13. Excluding respondents who do not report their income would reduce the sample by one quarter.

  14. Recall that the non-citizens of Latvia are not considered citizens of the EU and cannot work freely within the EU. In addition, at the moment of interviews (December 2005) non-citizens of Latvia needed visas to travel within the EU.

  15. Excluding individuals who did not report their emigration intentions could result in selection bias and inconsistent estimates. I apply Heckman selection procedure to check whether the problem is present. Using information on whether or not a respondent answered a question on attitudes towards immigration as identification variable, I find no evidence of selection bias.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK

    Artjoms Ivlevs

  2. GEP, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Artjoms Ivlevs

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Correspondence to Artjoms Ivlevs.

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Appendix

See Table 8.

Table 8 Definitions and summary statistics of variables
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Ivlevs, A. Minorities on the move? Assessing post-enlargement emigration intentions of Latvia’s Russian speaking minority. Ann Reg Sci 51, 33–52 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-012-0534-0

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