Study: about 7.4% of Armenian population labor migrants in 2002-2007
YEREVAN, January 16. /ARKA/. Labor migrants constituted about 7.4% of
the population of Armenia or 162,000-189,000 people in 2002-2007, says
a study report on migrants returned to Armenia in 2002-2008 presented
in Yerevan Thursday.
Labor migration constitutes the greatest share of the migration flow
from Armenia ` 94%; 3% of migrants left the country for permanent
residence abroad, 2% for education purposes and another 2% for other
purposes.
Over the period under review, about 20% of Armenian households (778,666
people as per the census of 2001) took part in labor migration.
Most migrants found themselves in migration processes more than once;
since January 2002 every labor migrant had an average of 2.5 trips
abroad.
According to the study, about 3% of the country’s households had at
least one of their members leaving the country for permanent residence
abroad. The number of Armenian citizens who left for permanent
residence elsewhere ranges between 25,000 and 37,000 people and
constitutes about 1.3% of the country’s population.
Less than 1% of the country’s households were involved in student
migration, says the report. Despite the fact than it was only one
member of a family who was leaving for abroad in the beginning, later
other members of the family were getting involved in the student
migration process as well20(multiplicative effect).
Hence, absolute number of student migrants is 7,000+ 3,000 people or
0.3% of Armenian population.
A total of 230,000 + 15,000 people or about 9.7% of adult resident
population of Armenia were involved in external migration process in
2002-2007.
The highest number of migrants were from Yerevan (53,000 people) and
the lowest from Siunik and Vayots Dzor regions ` 5,000 people from
each. Vayots Dzor provided the lowest number of migrants leaving for
abroad for permanent residence (300 people), Siunik – the fewest labor
migrants (2,700 people) and Siunik and Aragatsotn ` the fewest student
migrants (300 people each). No student migrants were recorded in
Aragatsotn, Lori, Shirak, Tavush and Vayots Dzor regions of Armenia
over the period under review.
The study was carried out by the Advanced Social Technologies research
NGO with assistance of OSCE Yerevan Office and with participation of
the migration agency of the country Territorial Administration
Ministry. The study was conducted among 2,500 households in Yerevan, 21
regional cities and 43 villages in March 2008. The random sampling
method was used in the study. `0–