Lithuania is ageing faster than any other country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a study by Invest Lithuania, the country’s investment agency, has found.
Until recently, Lithuania has been experiencing high emigration rates, which predominantly affected the younger population.
“People of working age are the ones who leave the country. Pensioners, on the other hand, stay so their share in the society increases,” Donatas Burneika, human geography researcher at Lithuanian social research institute, told Elta news agency.
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“So, our society is ageing faster than in the countries where the process happens due to natural causes of birth and death rates,” he added.
But last year, more people came to Lithuania than left. According to sociologists, this tendency will remain, and Lithuanian society’s ageing will slow down.
“It is likely that society will stop ageing so fast. […] I do not think we will turn into a young society, but fast ageing is in the past at least for now,” Romas Lazutka, a sociology professor, told Elta.
According to him, however, more people would stay or come back to Lithuania if wages in the country reached the European level.
“Lithuanian economy makes up 80 percent of the EU average. But wages are two to three times lower in Lithuania than in the EU,” said Lazutka.
But according to the Lithuanian department of statistics, over the last decade, wages in Lithuania increased by 54 percent, while productivity growth was 25 percent.
Lazutka also noted that Lithuania should concentrate more on elderly education programmes and help them change professions to adapt to the new labour markets.
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