What last year's natural increase in Estonia means

Thanks to Facebook's Urmas for letting me know the surprising news that Estonia has become--so far as I know--the first former Soviet republic in Europe (Azerbaijan and the rest of the Caucasus, perhaps, excluded--thanks for the correction, Anatoly) to experience an excess of births over deaths since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yes, there seems to have been some improvement--I posted recently about Russia, after all--but it still stands out remarkably. Compare neighbouring Latvia's ongoing collapse.

According to the revised data of Statistics Estonia, in 2010 35 people more were born than died. The population of Estonia was 1,340,194 on 1 January 2011.

15,825 people were born and 15,790 people died in 2010. The number of births exceeded the number of deaths last 21 years ago in 1990.

In 2010, 62 children more were born than a year earlier but the number of births was still smaller by about 200 than the last decade’s record in 2008 when more than 16,000 children were born.

On the contrary the number of deaths has been rapidly decreasing during the last three years and in 2010 291 people less died than a year earlier. Thus the positive natural increase was mainly achieved due to the decrease in the number of deaths.

617,757 males and 722,437 females lived in Estonia at the beginning of 2011. Population growth continued due to the natural increase in Harju and Tartu counties.

Harju County's is Estonia's most populous, its 524 thousand people amounting to 39.2% of the Estonian population, while Tartu County is Estonia's third most populous, home to just shy of 150 thousand people and 11.2% of the total population.

It's noteworthy that Idu-Viru County, Estonia's third by population and located in the northeast of the country around the city of Narva on the Russian frontier, does not figure in this; so far as I know, Ida-Viru is continuing to experience continued natural decrease.

One of the most important facts about Estonian demographics is the ethnic cleavage between ethnic Estonians (now roughly 70% of the total, up from 60% in 1990) and Russophones, largely descended from Soviet-era migrants attracted to industrial jobs and a higher standard of living than they could find in other Soviet republics like Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. See this 2007 post from Itching for Eestimaa for a decent overview of the situation. The two populations behave differently in many ways, including in demographic patterns. The three most populous counties fit into three different categories, Harju being roughly 60% ethnically Estonian by population, Tartu ~85%, but Ida-Viru 20%. (Somewhat ethnically mixed up to the Soviet era, post-war displacement of ethnic Estonians and mass immigration to the northeast's industrial centres created the only one of Estonia's fifteen counties with a non-Estonian majority population.)

I've a draft of a much longer post hidden in the archives. Briefly, I would like to say that this all fits with my noting of with ethnic Estonians now inclining to a relatively Nordic pattern (relatively high fertility, significant postponement of births, very significant extramarital fertility) and Russophones behaving in the opposite manner. See Puur et al.'s brief abstract "Fertility patterns among foreign-origin population: the evidence from Estonia" for an outline.

The analysis reveals a remarkably strong contribution of foreign-origin population to the total number of birth. In the 1970s and 1980s it accounted for more than a third of births registered in the country, leaving a long-term imprint on the ethnic and linguistic composition of the population. The cessation of massive inflow after the turn of the 1990s has somewhat reduced the proportion of births to women of immigrant background. In the recent years it has accounted for less than 30% of the total.

The comparison of completed cohort fertility rates allows to distinguish between two different patterns among women of immigrant origin born during the 20th century. In older cohorts, born in the first quarter of the century, the foreign origin population shows noticeably higher fertility, reflecting the later onset of fertility transition in the regions from which the immigrants originate. The progression of fertility transition in the latter resulted in the continuous decline and the convergence of levels with the native population in the birth cohorts of the late 1920s. However, the state of convergence proved temporary and in the generations born in the 1930s and later, the levels diverged again with foreign origin women having a systematically lower fertility compared to their native counterparts.

The examination of parity progression ratios and the ultimate parity distribution reveals that the lower completed fertility stems mainly from the less frequent progression to a second, and in particular, to a third birth among the foreign origin population. Compared to the native population, the corresponding measures have been twice or even more than twice lower, demonstrating the largest difference across parity distribution. On the other hand, the proportion of women with one-child has been markedly higher among immigrants. At the same time it is interesting to note that childbearing has typically occurred at an earlier age among the foreign-origin population.

Meanwhile, as Lars Agnarson notes in his paper "Estonia’s health geography: West versus east – an ethnic approach", partly because of Russophone concentration in Soviet-era industry--exactly the sorts of industries which got hit by the post-Communist transition--Russophones evidence significantly higher mortality than their ethnic Estonian co-residents, mortality rates apparently rising in proportion to the homogeneity of Russophone communities. Between 2000 and 2009 the populations of ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians each decreased by roughly nine thousand, but the ethnic Russian population is less than 38% of the size of the ethnic Estonian.

What does this imply? For Estonia as a whole, last year's natural increase might indicate that Estonia is moving from a post-Communist demographic system (low fertility, high mortality) to a Nordic one characterized by relatively high subreplacement fertility, low mortality, and a post-modern approach to family relationships. The question of emigration is noteworthy, and over the 2000-2008 period Estonia does seem to have seen the emigration of 13 thousand people. The volume of emigration has been significantly less than in Latvia or Lithuania, however, and much of it has been directed towards a Finland that is both geographically and culturally quite close to Estonia, Helsinki and Tallinn being separated by no more than a ferry ride. Much of what Estonian emigration has developed may be more temporary in nature. Estonian-Finnish migration is even bidirectional: Estonia can offer job opportunities for Finnish workers, too, and the lower cost of living in Estonia compared to Finland may be a long-run advantage.

It's also worth noting that a relatively less dire demographic situation than that of neighbouring Latvia may well provide Estonia with if not advantages, fewer disadvantages--including economic ones--over its southern neighbour, and others, too.

Within Estonia, if the past two years' sustained difference between a relatively high fertility/low mortality ethnic Estonian population and a relatively low fertility/high mortality Russophone population remains, then the continued shrinkage and aging of the Russophone population is inevitable. This will have significant effects on everything from the spatial distribution of the Estonian population (what will happen in the northeast) and the futures of economic sectors depending heavily on Russophone labour to the balance of political power in Estonia and Estonian relations with its neighbours.

Expect more later, please; consider this a taster.

On Doug Saunders' Donner Prize win for Arrival City

I wanted to share with our readers that friend of the blog Doug Saunders' book Arrival City, a book exploring the roles of cities in global migrations that I blogged about back in September, won Canada's prestigious Donner Prize literary award.

Globe and Mail European bureau chief Doug Saunders has won the $35,000 Donner Prize for Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World, which the jury for the annual award for public-policy writing declared is “a work that analyzes a global trend that we ignore at our peril.”

Arrival City, Saunders’s first book, highlights global migration as a defining force of 21st-century life and predicts that the volatile communities it creates will become the sites of either great creativity or violence. “This book enriches our understanding of how to interpret the dynamics of migrating people and the ecosystems that best support them,” the Donner jury said. “It deserves a broad readership and is a valuable public-policy contribution.”

Saunders’s book has drawn favourable reviews in Canada and abroad. “Serious, mightily researched, lofty and humane, Arrival City is packed with salient detail and could hardly be more timely,” a New York Times reviewer wrote, going on to compare the book to Jane Jacobs’s influential The Death and Life of American Cities.

In a brief interview, Saunders called winning the Donner “a huge and very flattering recognition for a book that doesn’t fit the usual mould of public-policy books. I’m very impressed that the judges were even willing to consider it.”

Established in 1998, the Donner Prize is awarded in recognition of excellence in Canadian public-policy thinking, writing and research. Previous winners include economist Eric Helleiner, pollster Michael Adams and political scientist Tom Flanagan.

Congratulations! And yes, I strongly recommend you pick up the book, too.

Four links for you

I'd like to apologize for not posting in a while: offline life intervened. I have accumulated four links that I think might be of interest to you all.

Over at Far Outliers, Joel quotes from Ryszard Kapuscinski's 2002 The Shadow of the Sun, describing how Tanzanian Sango-speakers (from central Tanzania) found ethnolinguistic kin in coastal Dar es Salaam.

Following a ball of yarn, they will finally arrive at the house of a countryman. The neighborhood is called Kariakoo, and its layout is more or less planned—straight, perpendicularly aligned sandy streets. The construction is monotonous and schematic. The so-called swahili houses predominate, a type of Soviet-style housing—a single one-storied building with eight to twelve rooms, one family in each. The kitchen is communal, as are the toilet and the washing machine. Each dwelling is unbelievably cramped, because families here have many children, each home being in effect a kindergarten. The whole family sleeps together on the clay floor covered with thin raffia matting.

Arriving within earshot of such a house, Edu and his kinsmen stop and call out: “Hodi!” It means, in effect: “May I come in?” In these neighborhoods the doors are always open, if they exist at all, but one cannot just walk in without asking, so this “Hodi!” can be heard from quite a distance. If someone is inside, he answers, “Karibu!” This means: “Please come in. Greetings.” And Edu walks in.

Now begins the interminable litany of greetings. It is simultaneously a period of reconnaissance: both sides are trying to establish their precise degree of kinship. Concentrated and serious, they enter the primevally thick and tangled forest of genealogical trees that is each clan and tribal community. It is impossible for an outsider to make heads or tails of it, but for Edu and his companions, this is a critical moment of the meeting. A close cousin can be a great help, whereas a distant one—significantly less so. But even in this second instance, they will not go away empty-handed. Without a doubt, they will find a corner under the roof here. There will always be a little room for them on the floor—an important consideration, since despite the warm climate it is difficult to sleep outside, in the yard, where one is tormented by mosquitoes, by spiders, earwigs, and various other tropical insects.

Global Voices, meanwhile, features the story of Yao Jiaxin in China, who seems to have murdered a rural migrant, a woman named Zhang Miao because she--as ruralites would, Zhang said in his defense--would try to blackmail him after he hit her with his car. Interesting fault lines, here, and abundant quotations from an enraged Chinese blogosphere.

Zhang Miao, how silly you were?

When Yao Jaxin checked on your injury, why did you stare at him. You probably thought that he was going to take you to the hospital.

You were wrong. He was checking if you were rural peasant or city dweller.

Zhang Miao, how silly that you let him know that you were from the rural area? In Yao Jaxin's eyes, a rural peasant's life is worthless. Death would cost less than injury. But he forgot to crush you with his car. Instead he stabbed deep into your body with his knife, eight times.

Zhang Miao, how silly you were?

Even though Yao Jaxin checked on your injury with a knife,

Even though it took him awhile to figure out your rural background,

The time for a premeditated murder was too short. They called this murder out of rage, rather than intentional murder.

We are all too ignorant to hear of such a term before.

At the Population Reference Bureau's blog, Carl Haub notes the continued rise in Russian fertility rates. Along with declining deaths, this has significantly reduced the rate of natural decrease. The big problems is that the cohorts of women born in the 1990s--a time of a markedly low birth rate--are coming to childbearing years and the situation will become more difficult, and that immigration is becoming problematic.

The social scientists have offered their opinion that the only way to avoid Russia’s population dropping below 140 million is to improve health conditions and lengthen life. They have recognized the relatively small number of women who will soon enter childbearing age and also warned that the supply of Russian-speaking migrants from other former USSR Republics is dwindling, particularly since many prefer to seek higher-paying work in the European Union. Migrants from former Central Asian republics of do not have work qualifications. The scientists have recommended that greater efforts be made to assimilate those migrants and prepare them for more worthwhile participation in the labor force.

Finally, at the unsurprisingly Toronto-centered blog Torontoist Kevin Plummer writes about how Italian migrants in post-Second World War Toronto sacrificed in order to own their own, constantly improved, houses.

By the mid-1950s, the annual influx had grown to about 20,000. Over that period of rapid growth, Italian men comprised 8% of the workforce in Metro Toronto. They worked unskilled or semi-skilled jobs as construction workers or general labourers, digging sewers. With long hours in abysmal working conditions, it was gruelling work at the kinds of jobs that, one Italian man told Iacovetta, "they give only to the immigrants."

Some newcomers benefited from a network of kinfolk and paesani, and could board with earlier immigrants from their family or village. Some employers, like small construction companies, placed employees in company-owned shared accommodation. Other men lodged with other male newcomers in boarding houses run by Italian families or enterprising newcomers. In any of these shared accommodations, quarters might be tight, with several men to a room. The idea of large groups of foreigners living together also drew the attention of well-meaning outsiders who suggested that the Italians were being exploited as much in housing arrangements as in their work conditions. It occurred to few experts that, as Robert F. Harney in an essay in the anthology, The Canadian City (Carleton University Press, 1984), Italian "sojourners might prefer such a boarding system was lost in a haze of moral outrage."

Almost always, boarders were from the same region of Italy as their hosts—Calabrese boarded with Calabrese, Abruzzese with Abruzzese—so these housing arrangements also provided the comfort of cultural camaraderie. "It was better being with your own," one interviewee recalled to Iacovetta. "You had somebody to talk with at night. We talked about Italy, and about the jobs—what else?" The boarding house cuisine also reflected familiarity of home and the common ethnicity of the residents. (As a cost-saving measure, pasta-heavy diets were only occasionally supplemented with meat.)

"Familial priorities loomed large in the lives of Italian men," Iacovetta writes. And the frugal housing situation allowed the male workers—who took pride in being their family's bread-winner—to stretch their meagre wages. Maximizing savings, they could send money to their families in Italy or save for a down payment on a house. "It's common for sixteen people to live in one well-kept eight-room house," Robert Thomas Allen noted in Maclean's (March 21, 1964). "When the newcomer does land a job, he makes every nickel count. Italians are so frugal that they kid themselves about it."

Go, read.