Young People want to Leave Georgia

The Georgian Green Party has stated, in accordance with sociological polls conducted by IRI-Georgia (International Republic Institute-Georgia), that 38% of young people over the age 17 are ready to leave Georgia. In the opinion of the Green Party, such migration would trigger a rise in politically motivated migration from densely populated countries, placing Georgia at a demographical risk.

The Green Party used data collected by IRI-Georgia, which used a sample of 1500 people to represent the Georgian population. Based on this data, it turns out that 1,230,000 people are ready to leave Georgia, 680,000 have already decided to leave the country and 550,500 are actively thinking about it. Only 44% are against leaving the country.

According to the Greens, if young and middle aged people leave Georgia, the country will lose about 51% of the work force and pensioners will be a larger portion of the population.

As the head of Green Party states, the results were not unexpected given the difficult social situation, general unfairness and nepotism governing the country. This has forced these groups to think that they don’t have any prospects in Georgia.

The Green Party argues that with such migration the country would shift from a majority of Georgian people to a population dominated by citizens of another country moving to Georgia based on political motivations. This would be, the Greens argue, a demographic catastrophe for Georgia.

The Human Rights Center contacted IRI-Georgia and asked for a comment. Gia Gachechiladze, a representative of IRI, stated that there isn’t anything extraordinary in these figures. The example of Latvia was given, where, despite being a more democratic country than Georgia, 40% of population wants to leave. “Such tendencies is quite ordinary in the modern world,” Gachechiladze said.

“Latvia is the member country of EU without serious problems in the migration process,” Gachechiladze continued. “But because of current situation in Georgia, 17 % of people want to leave forever. The poll included the question “How much time will be needed to improve the present situation in Georgia?” Most of people think that it will require lot of time. This means that people don’t see their future in bright colors. Latvian people migrate because they want better conditions but Georgians try to survive so there is a difference between these two countries. So I cannot agree to the IRI but I can understand them as they don’t want to publish the data amid the tense situation in Georgia nowadays.”

The International Organization of Migration surveyed about 1400 people to determine which countries were most attractive to them. Most people, approximately 27%, seek a life abroad working as a maid. But 23% will agree on any job. The most attractive country to them is the USA, then Greece and other EU states.

Nino Tarkhnishvili, Tbilisi