Emigration Patterns in the Baltic Countries: Can Migration Policies Make it Any Better

• In Event: Migration and Transnationalism

Abstract

Out migration of young, employable and talented population from Lithuania towards more economically and socially advanced continues to grow, and together with the stubbornness of the politicians to extend the list of conditions when the dual citizenship is allowed, allowing those who left to keep ties with the country, this creates an alarming concern about the future of the country. The problem of out migration of population however is also common for two other Baltic countries (Hazans and Philips (2010). Driven both by my personal and scholarly interests, I conducted a small research on the difference of immigration systems in three Baltic countries, particularly what relates to dual citizenship and repatriation. The study incorporates discourse analysis of the official migration related web sources and migration law centers, and interviews with migration consultants.

Short Bio

Elina Sukaryavichute, PhD student in Geography at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, holding her master’s degree in Geography from Miami University (Oxford, OH) and her undergraduate degree in Geography and English from Moscow State Pedagogical University (Russia). Being an undergraduate student at MSPU Elina conducted a capstone research project looking at the political, economic, and social relationship between Lithuania and Russia through bordering Kaliningrad oblast'.

Author

• Elina Sukaryavichute, University of North Carolina, Charlotte