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Armenia population expected to be no more than 2 million by 2050

12 July 2013 13:58 (UTC+04:00)
Armenia population expected to be no more than 2 million by 2050

By Sabina Idayatova

Armenia's population will be no more than 2 million people by 2050, News-Armenia quoted director of the Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Law of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, Gevorg Pogosyan, as saying on July 10.

According to UN projections, 3 million people instead of the current 3.2 million will live in Armenia by 2050.

"Like many countries in the world, Armenia is characterized by a tendency of depopulation. This is primarily because of the decline in the birth rate in the country and strong migration deflux.

UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) in its predictions takes into account the trends in fertility and mortality in the country, however, the migration potential is not taken into account," Pogosyan said during the Moscow-Kiev-Chisinau-Yerevan-Astana video link on demographic situation in CIS countries.

According to the expert, over the past ten years, the birth rate in Armenia has declined averagely to 35,000 children per year from about 72,000 children at the end of the 1980s.

"In our country, the population is reducing mainly due to outflow. Thus, annually 35,000 children are born and the same number of people leave the country," Pogosyan said.

He noted that there is also a problem of population aging in Armenia, as 14.6 percent of the population are above 60, while according to international standards, aging is considered to be 12 percent of the population being over 60 years old.

Pogosyan added that there is also a problem of urbanization in the country.

"Armenia is one of the few countries in which 35 percent of the population lives in the capital. Therefore, there is depopulation of rural areas, which also affects the demographic picture," Pogosyan said.

The expert said that in order to change the current demographic situation in the country it is necessary to halt the migration outflow and increase the birth rate through various programs and benefits packages as well as to make an effort to return citizens living abroad to their homeland.

In the last three years 5 percent or about 160,000 Armenian citizens left the country, according to Armenian Report portal.

According to the Armenian Migration Service, 2.053 million people left the country over 11 months of 2012, while 1.981 million people returned in this period. Thus, the difference between those who left and came back made up about 72,000 people, Haykakan Zhamanak daily said.

In January-February 2013, the number of emigrants increased by 2,455 compared to the same period of 2012.

The tendency of an exodus emerged in 2008, and about 200,000 people have left the country since then in search of a new start in their lives.

Given Armenia's small population of slightly over 3 million, if the dangerous demographic situation in the South Caucasus republic persists, it may soon have almost no labor force left. Around two-thirds of the migrants have reportedly gone to Russia, while the rest have moved to the U.S. or Europe.

The most intensive migration has been reported to the central and southern regions of Russia, as well as to the other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. At least 40,000 people have left for the United States and other industrialized countries.

About 60 percent of the entire total of 8 million Armenians live outside Armenia in 60 countries, with one million in the U.S. and Russia each. There are also large Armenian communities in Georgia, France, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Argentina, and Canada.

The Armenian government, however, appears to lack an intention to change the situation for the sake of its people by leaving the country sidelined from regional projects because of the invasion policy against Azerbaijan, occupying the country's Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other regions, and fueling tension with neighboring countries.

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