Lithuania in 2018: net emigration of at most 0.18% by 2023. In 2023 arrivals exceeded departures by 1.57%
Seimas of Lithuania20 September 2018 · Seimas resolution No. XIII-1484 approving the strategy
«Net migration as a percentage of the total population [...] -0.98 (2017) [...] target for 2023: -0.18»
Net migration in 2023 was +1.57% of the population against a target of -0.18%: more people arrived than left.
Fact: Eurostat, demo_gind (CNMIGRATRT, ‰, переведено в %), Lithuania
More people have arrived than left since 2019. Among 2023 arrivals were 15,551 citizens of Belarus and 10,145 of Ukraine.
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Lithuania had been losing people to emigration since the 1990s. In 2018 the Seimas approved a strategy: by 2023 only slightly more people should leave than arrive. Here is arrivals minus departures, as a percentage of the population.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the chart the dark line is the fact year by year up to the deadline, the pale one after it; the blue dashed line is the promised number from the year of the words to the deadline, the light band the time the promise gave; the ring on the line is when it was said, the ring in the stamp’s colour the fact in the deadline year, beside it how far it landed from the goal. The numbers on the right are the scale.
- Seimas of Lithuania, Seimas resolution No. XIII-1484 approving the strategy quote
«Neto migracija procentais nuo visų gyventojų [...] -0,98 (2017 m.) [...] Siekinys 2023 m.: -0,18» — Net migration as a percentage of the total population [...] -0.98 (2017) [...] target for 2023: -0.18
- What happened exceeded
Net migration in 2023 was +1.57% of the population against a target of -0.18%: more people arrived than left.
Eurostat, demo_gind (CNMIGRATRT, ‰, переведено в %), Lithuania
Target: annex to Seimas resolution No. XIII-1484 on the demography, migration and integration policy strategy 2018–2030 (e-seimas.lrs.lt). Fact: Eurostat, crude rate of net migration per 1,000 (demo_gind), converted to per cent. Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
In 2023, 7,266 more Lithuanian citizens arrived than left. The strategy used data from before the revision by the 2021 census: −0.98% for 2017, against −0.73% in Eurostat’s revised series. The «no more outflow than» target was overshot by arrivals: citizens of Belarus, Ukraine and returning Lithuanians, and in 2022 refugees from Ukraine.
A question for this picture
The outflow target was overshot: is this what the strategy’s authors expected?