- Lithuania has experienced significant population changes since 1989 due to emigration and urbanization trends. Emigration levels are exceptionally high and can be partly attributed to Lithuania's unique historical settlement system that lacked a dominant metropolitan area. - As Lithuania transforms its Soviet-era society and integrates further into the global economy, natural processes of urbanization and metropolization are ongoing but impeded by the country's polycentric urban network. This spatial structure, combined with improving borders and mobility, has accelerated emigration abroad, especially to Scandinavian countries with strong economic ties to Lithuania. - Continued depopulation of rural areas and migration to cities will further transform Lithuania's settlement patterns and challenge its regional development. However,

1. Population Change and
Migrations in Lithuania: Trends
and Hidden Processes
Donatas Burneika
Lithuanian Social Research Centre
Rūta Ubarevičienė
Lithuanian Social Research Centre
Delft University of Technology

2. The aim and objectives
The aim is to reveal the main trends of the
transformations of the Lithuanian settlement
network in the context of migration processes.
The main objectives – analysis of population
change, “official” and hidden migrations and their
causes as well as some consequences of these
proceses

3. Emigration – finding out hidden reasons
• Unemployment, wage differences, bad or good
images of places and all other reasons of
migrations are well known, but they do not explain
the exceptional scale of the process in Lithuania.
• Why Lithuanian are so exceptionally “emigrable”,
though economy of the country is not
exceptionally bad?

4. Emigration – finding out hidden reasons
• Answers may be related to the reasons, which are
being analysed quite rare.
• They theoretically could be related to exceptional
“mind” or “consciousness” of our citizens, always
perceiving that grass is much greener in your
neighbours yard. But we don’t have serious proof
of somewhat strange brain structure of
Lithuanians…
• So what is exceptional in Lithuania, comparing to
other countries, causing such a will or need to
leave your place?

5. Present trends – consequences of spatial
structure of Lithuanian society
• Any society has more or less optimum spatial
structure according to its state of development and
geographical structure of the country.
• Changing society means changing spatial structure
and therefore movement of population. So
understanding migrations is difficult ignoring
processes of transformations of society.
• Foreign migrations (emigration, namely) should
not be analysed and could not be fully understood
ignoring migrational processes inside the country,
because these two processes are interrelated.

6. Urbanisation and metropolisation
• Redistribution of population from rural areas to
urban and especially to metropolitan regions is
absolutely natural process happening in all
developing countries, because rural jobs are
shrinking few times due to technological changes,
while best jobs are concentrated in biggest
metropolitan areas due to the comparative
advantages they can offer.
• Therefore many (and in some places the most)
Lithuanians have got no option between to
emigrate or not. They do only have option where
to?

7. Unique Lithuanian settlement system –
historical and geographical heritage
• Historical reasons determined creation of second capital city
(Kaunas) and geographical reasons raised the Klaipėda
(Lithuania is the only state in the region with the peripheral
capital, which is not sea port).
• Prevention of the development of the biggest cities, especially
Vilnius, and expansion of medium sized towns into cities, giving
them regional functions was carried out in the Soviet era. This
created network of medium size cities.
• It worked O.K. in the society without competition, but none of
the other European state of similar composition have evolved
such a uniform urban system, without dominant metropolitan
area, which would serve as a main economic axis of the country
and compete with similar ones abroad.

8. Settlement system of Lithuania – result of exceptional
historical and geographical circumsatnaces as well as unique
spatial planning

9. 10 biggest cities in Baltic countries
Lithuania – was (is) the only small or medium size country in
Europe without clear dominance of one metropolitan region
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Lithuania
Latvia
Estija

10. Transformation of space as a consequence
of transformation of society
• Emigration, and especially scale of emigration partly could be
perceived as another negative heritage of the Soviet regime.
• Post-soviet transformations together with processes of
globalisation and Europeanization have been transforming
Lithuanian society.
• So, emigration (apart from other reasons) is a continuation
of “suspended” processes of urbanisation and
metropolitisation. It is a natural process, which gained
“unnatural”, exceptional character due to the deminishing
political, economic and “mental” borders and exceptional
socio-spatial structure of the country.
• Therefore, there are very few possibilities to stop this
process, but maybe it could be regulated by changing the
destinations of those leaving their hometowns.

11. The result – differences of GVA per capita (2009)

12. General trend
- population increase 1959-1989
- population decrease 1989-2001

13. Regional differences of population change
1989-2011

14. Tendencies of metropolization 2001 - 2011

15. Total population change in Lithuanian cities and LAU2 regions
2001 – 2011

16. Trends of the metropolization will be expressed more by shrinkage
of secondary cities than by expansion of capital city-region

17. Pace of emigration from municipalities in 2001 – 2012

18. Migrations from municipalities to other destinations in Lithuania

19. Emigration from municipalities to foreign countries. Cities
dominate – instead of becoming the final destination points
for emigrants, their become a transit points

20. Approximate number of labour migrants and their origin in the
biggest cities in 2012 (hidden migration is of the same scale as
official)
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
Vilnius Kaunas Klaipėda Šiauliai Panevėžys Alytus
Other
Alytus
Panevėžys
Šiauliai
Klaipėda
Kaunas
Vilnius

21. Destination of labour migrations to the city municipalities

22. Gathered income tax and proportion of population in
municipalities

23. I. Result of depopulation – spread of sparsely populated
regions in Lithuania

24. II. Change of number of pupils in schools of general education
in 2001 – 2011

25. Change of number of schools of general education in 2001 – 2011

26. Empty “central kolchoz settlements”

27. The city sprawl
Expansion of Vilnius city region in 1990 and 2011 – result of
internal migrations and poor regional planning

28. Simplified structure of Vilnius city (functional) region

29. Foreign migration – why Scandinavia?
Economic “Scandinavisation” of Eastern Baltics is more than
obvious. This process ends within state borders of Baltic
countries.
Foreign direct investments in Lithuania
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
30000000
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Russia
Scandinavia
Central Western Europe

30. • Natural processes of depopulation of rural areas
related to continuation of delayed urbanisation will
persist in Lithuania and in surrounding countries. It will
be making negative impact on local population first of
all by damaging their expectation and hopes, but not
their incomes or living standards.
• Such trends will continue to fuel both inner and
foreign migrations. Developing business contacts and
other relations with Scandinavian countries will
guarantee that Nordic dimension of foreign emigration
will be dominating.
Conclusions

31. • The state policy in such new sparsely populated areas
should concentrate not on preservation of number of
population or existing service networks or hausing facilities,
but on adoption of these to new reality.
• Strengthening local communities and local self-
governing, improving communication networks,
simplification of land use conversion procedures,
disseminating objective information of on-going processes
and other similar actions would make much more effective
influence on the prosperity and life satisfaction of local
population.
Conclusions

32. • Metropolization in Lithuania will not reach the degree of
other countries of the Baltic sea region and remaining
Europe. The difference of on-going socio-economic changes
and transformations of settlement structure will cause
various social, economic and psychological tensions in
Lithuania.
• Such a situation and inherited polycentrism of the country
will cause bigger emigration flows than in the other post-
socialist countries. The management of the urban network
should be based on the idea of solidarity and unity, but not
on the uniform settlement network of the country.
Conclusions

33. Thank you for your attention!