Sargsyan's empty dream
By Rashid Shirinov
The Sargsyan regime is trying to sell an empty dream to Armenians for its own selfish reasons.
President Serzh Sargsyan, addressing the 6th Armenia-Diaspora Sixth Pan-Armenian Forum, has once again voiced his pipe dream – to increase the population of the country to 4 million people by 2040.
The dreamy statement was aimed to convince Armenians living abroad to return homeland or at least invest in the country, which would allow the authorities to increase their wealth.
President Sargsyan in vain hopes for repatriation of young professionals and entrepreneurs from the Diaspora communities– he will not be able to increase the population in the country, Armenian experts say.
Even the most ardent patriotic Armenians do not want to live in a country where human rights are not respected, where there is no freedom of speech and it is impossible to do honest business, the experts note. Armenians are well aware how the government does not let businessmen work freely and forces to pay significant part of their earnings to the authorities.
The official statistics show that the country’s population continues to decline steadily year by year, and the government is still unable to fix the situation. The population has decreased by 15,200 people over the past year, and today the population of the country is even less than 3 million – 2,979,900 people according to the National Statistical Service.
The recently published UN report noted that the country’s population will decrease to 2,993,000 in 2030 and 2,729,000 in 2050. Moreover, in 2100 Armenia’s population will be only 1,793,000 according to the UN.
There are many reasons why the population in Armenia is decreasing, but the main ones are the widespread unemployment, rampant corruption and lack of people’s confidence in the future. Even young Armenians, who have higher education, face difficulties with finding a descent job, not to mention those who don’t have a university degree. Therefore, if young people have any opportunity, they leave Armenia for good. As for those who stay in the country, they try not to have more than one child because of difficult living conditions in Armenia.
Moreover gender inequality is a pressing issue in the Armenian society. In Armenia, women constitute 67 percent of country’s economically non-active population and their unemployment rate is almost double that of male unemployment (51.5 percent female vs. 21.8 percent male).
According to World Bank estimates, Armenia loses as much as 14 percent of its potential GDP due to unequal opportunities for women to participate in employment and entrepreneurship.
Despite pressing socio-economic problems, the Armenian government hopes to attract to the country successful compatriots living abroad.
However, Armenians living abroad are aware of the processes taking place in the motherland, and do not wish to be part of it.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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