THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXIT AND ENTRY DATA OF RECENT EMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA

THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXIT AND ENTRY DATA OF RECENT EMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA

Dina Chaika

student, University of Louisville,

 USA, Louisville

Aleksei Izyumov

Ph.D., University of Louisville, Louisville, USA and Visiting Professor, Novosibirsk State University,

Russia, Novosibirsk

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the difference between the national Russian data on emigration and the data on immigrant arrivals from Russia provided by destination countries. It reviews the recent history of emigration from Russia focusing on the evolution of emigration procedures and methodology of reporting for emigrant departures in official national statistics. The paper finds that the number of immigrant arrivals from Russia to key destination countries such as Germany, Israel and the US, significantly surpasses the numbers of officially registered emigrants to these countries reported by Russia itself. The paper finds that differences between the Russian methodology of accounting for the number of emigrants and international methodology of accounting for immigrant arrivals are not significant enough to explain most of the differences in the data.

I. Introduction

In the last decade Russia witnessed a significant increase in the number of emigrants. According to the Russian national statistics, Rosstat, in 2018, 441 thousand of Russian citizens left the country – 3.6 times more than the number in 2012 (123 thousand). At the end of the same year responding to this surge of emigration, the Russian government issued a Decree “On Migration Policy of the Russian Federation for the period 2019-2025” the main purpose of which was to reduce international emigration of Russian citizens and try to bring the citizens who already left the country back to Russia.

This paper investigates the differences between the Russian data on emigrants and the data of the destination countries on Russian immigrant arrivals. The main research question of the paper is to determine if the data of emigrant departures from Russia and immigrant arrivals from Russia are compatible, and if not, can these differences be explained by differences in immigration reporting methodology. To find out answers to these questions, we compile Russian national data on citizens departing Russia to three of the main destination countries of the Russian emigration – Germany, Israel, and the US. We then compare these data to the data on Russian immigrant arrivals reported by these countries themselves. The period under review is from 2005 to 2015, the period during which the Russian emigration reporting methodologies remained consistent. We also analyze subsequent changes in these methodologies to see whether these changes had a significant impact on the resulting immigration statistic.

Based on the results of these analyses, the paper finds that after allowing for differences in the Russian methodology of accounting for emigrants and the methodology of countries-recipients of the Russian arrivals, Russian numbers remain significantly undercounted.

II. Literature review

Undercounting the emigrations statistics has been a long-lasting problem in Russia. Iontsev V., Lebedeva N., Nazarov M., and Okorokov A. [1] overview of history of the emigration from Russia, reports that problems associated with accounting for in- and out migration existed long before the recent period. These problems were particularly significant with the start of massive emigration from Russia in late 19th century, following the emancipation of serfs in 1861. The authors mentioned that problems with accounting for the numbers of emigrants were caused by the intersection of interests of the Russian government, and the emigrants themselves [1].

The recent period of emigration from Russia that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has been hurting its economy and demography. Rybakovskiy L., Kozhevnikova N [10] looked at how the trends of emigration have been changing over time and concluded that the emigration process kept increasing and that it leaves Russia with the lower-skilled labor as the majority of emigrants are specialists and high-skilled labor. In addition, most of the emigrants are young, including the fertile part of the population – young women. That leaves Russia with less resources for the population growth. The authors concluded that the current emigration trends are hurting the Russian economy and its demography [10, pp.40-50].

Maslennikov V., Maslennikov O., and Linnikov A. [2] tried to investigate the exact losses encountered by the Russian economy due to the emigration processes. The methodology by which the authors evaluated the losses was based on the definition of the value of human life and individualization of this factor in accordance with the level of economic development of the recipient country and individual attributes of an emigrant. The authors found that the total losses of the Russian economy due to the emigration in 2000-2017 made up more than 27 trillion roubles. However, the authors admitted that these estimates were derived from the national Russian data and could be smaller than the actual ones [2, pp.54-65].

A number of researchers observing the discrepancies between the national and foreign-based data on Russian emigration explained it on the differences in the emigration recording methodology in Russia and the host countries. Vorobyeva O., Aleshkovski I., and Grebenyuk A. [13] compared the Russian emigration data provided by the National Russian Statistics (Rosstat) and the data on Russian immigrants provided by the national statistics of foreign countries and found the quantitative discrepancies in registered migration flows. They concluded that the Russian statistical services were constantly underestimating the scope of emigration. The main reason for these differences in their view was the difference in the emigration recording principles in Russia and the host countries [13, pp.107-118].

Ryazantsev S., Pismennaya E., and Baikov A. [8] also found significant discrepancies in the data on emigration provided by the national Russian statistics services and the foreign national statistics services. During the period of 1990-2000, according to the Russian national statistics, Russian emigration was rapidly increasing, the number of Russian citizens in the US, according to the US statistics, was almost as rapidly decreasing. The authors found an explanation of this in the peculiarities of the US Census surveys in that it allowed the people surveyed to self-identify their nationality. And what most emigrant Russians did, was that they identified themselves as people of different nationality rather than Russian. However, when the data were collected not based on the nationality survey but on the place of birth, the relationship between the number of Russian citizens leaving the country and the number of Russian citizens residing in the US became positive, even though there were still discrepancies in the scales. The authors did not find a reason for such discrepancies [8, pp.94-100].

Savina S. [11] tried to find a reason for such discrepancies and concluded that Russian statistics undercounts the number of emigrants due to the behavior of emigrants themselves. She has found that not all Russian citizens leaving the country notify the government about that and/or go through all the formal steps of deregistering. The author uses this reason to explain the six-times difference in the national Russian data and the data provided by the countries-recipients. According to the author, the majority of Russian citizens emigrate for economic reasons. She also reports the survey results according to which one out of ten Russian citizens want to emigrate because they know someone who has emigrated [11].

Interestingly enough, the issue of undercounting seems to only apply to the statistics on emigration from Russia, but not to the opposite side of the migration phenomenon – returning migration to Russia. Thus, Ryazantsev S., Pismennaya E., and Khramova M. [9] pointed out the fact that the Russian official statistics on repatriates was significantly more detailed and had much fewer discrepancies with the foreign data on Russians leaving their respective countries [9, pp.64-73].

III. Data sources and methodology

After the creation of the Soviet State in 1917, Russia has experienced four major waves of emigration. The first one in 1918-1922 largely consisted of people running from the Soviet government, revolution, and the Civil War. According to estimates, this emigration wave counted between 1.5 and 3 million emigrants from Russia. The second wave was in 1941-1944 during and after World War II. It counted about 0.5-0.7 million emigrants. The third wave was in 1948-1990 during the Cold War and counted about 0.5 million emigrants. The current fourth wave started with the disintegration of the USSR at the end of the 1980s. With the liberal reforms of Michael Gorbachev in the 1980s leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian borders were essentially opened, and Russian citizens were able to move out of the country freely.

The three main destinations of emigration that emerged in the 1990s were Germany, Israel, and the USA. According to the German statistics agency, after the fall of the Iron Curtain the annual inflow of migrants from Russia to Germany was about 100,000 people and reached its peak in 1994-1995 [12]. Afterwards, from 2006 to 2012 the annual migration flow of Russian citizens to Germany was constantly declining falling to 20,000 people [12]. From 2012 to 2015 those numbers increased again to about 30,000 people [12]. Overall, according to the German statistics agency, from 2000 to 2015 more that 600,000 of Russian citizens emigrated to Germany [12].

However, according to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the total for the same period was as low as 260,000 people [7, p. 402]. The undercount for this period is more than 50%.

Table 1.

Figure 1. Comparative Migration Data. Germany

The second main destination of Russian emigration was Israel. There were two peaks of Russian emigration to Israel – in 1990 (more than 60,000 people) and in 1998 (more than 40,000 people) [3]. According to the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration of Israel, from the year 2000 the annual migration inflow of Russian citizens to Russia was about 3,000-4,000 people [3], which is higher than is showed by the data by Rosstat. From 2012 to 2015 there is an increase in the number of Russian immigrants in Israel, according to the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration of Israel. Taking into consideration that the methods of the immigration accounting in Israel stayed the same during that period but Rosstat did not show any increase in the number of Russian emigrants to Israel, we can conclude that Rosstat did not account for a major part of Russian emigration to Israel [3].

Table 2.

Figure 2. Comparative Migration Data. Israel

The annual migration flow of Russian citizens to the US in the last two decades has been declining in both Russian official reporting and in the US data of immigrant arrivals. From 1990 to 2007 it was between 10,000 and 20,000 people [14]. The minimum was reached in 2010 – 6,000 people [14]. From 2012 to 2015 the annual migration flow of Russian citizens to the U.S. did not exceed 10,000 people [14]. For the period from 1997 to 2014 about 230,000 of Russian citizens arrived in the U.S. The Russian statistics shows much lower numbers.

Table 3.

Figure 3. Comparative Migration Data. The USA

Germany, Israel, and the US remain the main destinations of the Russian emigration despite the declines of the recent years. However, over the last decade such countries as Canada, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were also significant destination of the Russian emigration.

According to the Statistical Agency in France, in 2000 more than 1,000 of Russian migrants arrived in France, in 2014 – more than 4,000 people [4]. The Russian Statistics counts only 500 people making an undercount of approximately 87.5% [7]. In 2013 the number of Russian emigrants in France was more than 60,000 people [4]. In 2009-2010 more than 8,000 of Russian citizens emigrated to France [4], which was not accounted for by the Russian Statistics Services at all.

According to the National Statistical Agency of Great Britain, over the last 20 years more than 20,000 of Russian citizens emigrated to Great Britain [5]. Russian Statistics account for only 4,000 emigrants [7] making an undercount of about 80% of emigrants.

According to the National Statistical Agency of Spain, from 2009 the number of Russian citizens emigrating to Spain was constantly increasing and reached its highest value in 2013-2014 (more than 8,000 people) [5]. Russian statistics accounts for only less than 1,000 emigrants making an undercount of approximately 87.5% of emigrants [7].

According to the National Statistics Agency of Italy, the number of Russian citizens that emigrated to Italy was constantly increasing from 2000 to 2010 reaching its highest value of about 8,600,000 people in 2010 [5]. In all the following years the number of Russian citizens emigrating to Italy was not lower than 4,000 people [5]. Russian statistics, however, accounts for only less than 1,000 emigrants [7].

The difference between the numbers of the Russian emigrants/immigrants in the Scandinavian countries provided by the national statistics services of those countries and the Russian Federal State Statistics Service demonstrate more than 80% undercount in the Russian reporting [5] [7].

Table 4.

IV. Discussion and conclusions

The undercount of the number of emigrants from Russia in the last 10-15 years was significant and has been increasing. What could be the reason for such undercounting? Is it in the Russian government’s, emigrants’, or recipient countries’ interests?

From the standpoint of the Russian officials responsible for emigration higher and/or growing numbers of emigrants are not desirable. Larger numbers of emigrants from a country imply that living, social, and economic conditions there are worse than in other countries where emigrants are moving to. This might fuel even more emigration as more and more people learn how active their countrymen are in migrating abroad. No less importantly the mass exit of skilled and educated citizens leaves any country of origin of emigrants worse off. In that context it is in the governments’ interest to undercount the numbers of emigrants in the official statistics and to minimize the reported numbers of immigrants.

At the same time, it can be in an emigrant’s own interest to emigrate de-facto but to not officially announce that they are leaving the country. The disincentives of making emigration official accompanied with the renouncement of the Russian citizenship is particularly strong. Renouncing citizenship is costly, time-consuming, and unpleasant. As a result, most Russian emigrants choose not to announce officially their emigrant status. And almost none of emigrants renounce their citizenship.  In 2018, for example, only 18 citizens renounced their Russian citizenship, and only 10 in 2019. For comparison, in each of these years more than 2,500 citizens renounced their citizenship in the US.

As for the countries receiving Russian immigrants, in particular Germany, the US, and Israel, their reported official numbers for Russian immigration can be considered generally reliable. In these countries, government immigration authorities do not have any distinct motivation to overcount or undercount immigrants from Russia.  At the same time incoming Russian immigrants themselves are directly motivated to officially register so as to be eligible for health care and welfare benefits. In addition, due to the political sensitivity of immigration issues in general, government agencies responsible for immigration remain under strict public scrutiny that would prevent any major over/undercount of immigrants if it was to be attempted.

References:

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