Today.Az » Analytics » Armenia suffers population deficit rise
14 May 2014 [13:27] - Today.Az


By AzerNews

The Armenian government has complained of a shortage of demographic resources, which are not enough to serve the present pension model.

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan made the remarks at parliamentary discussions of the draft amendments to the law on accumulative pensions.

"We cannot deny that Armenia's demographic resources, neither at present nor in the future, will be enough to extend the life of the current pension system on the principle of solidarity between generations. The reforms should come from this logic," Asatryan said.

The proposed draft amendments will be temporary prior to the adoption of new legislation under the decision of the Constitutional Court. The court declared the controversial items of a law on introducing compulsory accumulative pension system unconstitutional on April 2. The final law should be adopted by September 30.

Immigration has kept growing in Armenia in recent years. Immigration reached 30,000-35,000 people per year in 2008 to 2013. The statistics of the first quarter of 2014 is also very unpleasant.

The number of people who left Armenia by air exceeded the number of arrivals at 21,686 in the first quarter of 2014. Some 186,493 people departed from Yerevan's airport, while only 164,807 arrived at it.

The number of citizens who left Armenia in the first quarter of 2014 increased by 21,218 compared to the same period in 2013.

Associate professor Vaan Guyumchyan, an Armenian Ph.D. scientist with 25 years of experience who left the country recently said the main reason for immigration is the people's social situation and the psychological factor.

"Leaving the country became inevitable for me when I realized that people here treat themselves as voluntary slaves," he said.

High immigration is bringing about a huge government crisis for the post-Soviet republic, making the state power to go to any length to save itself.

The authorities are continuing their election fraud by exaggerating the voter list.

In the background of the catastrophic level of immigration outflows, the number of voters has increased in Armenia.

"People are emigrating from Armenia, but the voters' list keeps growing," MP Nikol Pashinyan said. "During the last presidential election in 2013, the number of voters exceeded the number of voters in 1991 by 400,000 people."

Lack of demographic resources is an old challenge for the Armenian government, which is unable to stop the deepening social collapse, and seems unwilling to do so.

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