Youth in the Baltic States – leaving or not?

Abstract

According to statistics, the number of young people aged 15 to 29 in the Baltic States has decreased considerably in the past decade. As this age group is around one sixth of the population in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, this trend is significant, and represents a risk from a demographic, nationality, security, and financial point of view. The population of the Baltic States is currently subject to a higher risk of multidimensional poverty than the populations of other EU countries (Voronov et al., 2020). Moving out of these countries is not forbidden, but in an ideal world young people would return, which is not always the case. As migration processes can be influenced proactively, in this article the authors analyze the situation and consider what could be done to maintain wellbeing, to keep the younger generation in their home countries, and/or to attract them to return. Empirical data comes from secondary data analysis: the authors conducted a content analysis of two published reports. The aim is to focus on wellbeing and social-pedagogical prevention to find answers to two questions: what influences emigration readiness, and can certain activities prevent emigration? As a conclusion of our analysis, the following is stressed: sometimes leaving is a tool for hope/attaining something better – for higher quality of wellbeing, for example; however, some people just want to get away – they leave for the sake of leaving. Both cases may be problematic – a social pedagogical preventive consultation could avoid larger crises. The proactive approach may help to keep younger generations in the home country and/or support their readiness to come back after study abroad.