The Emigration Problem in Lithuania

Unit 3: Migration

11/18/16

Original article link can be found here

Synopsis:

           The country of Lithuania is the opposite of the rest of the world on its issue of emigration and immigration. Right now, it is most concerned with its rising emigration rates rather than immigration ones. Most of what you see on the news is countries worried about how many people they have coming into their country and their fear of terrorism, however, that is not the case with Lithuania. Its population has been steadily declining since 2000 and the government is now focusing on turning that around. A declining population as such has a huge effect on the economy and how the country functions as a whole. The country is projected to shrink by another 40% between now and 2080 if nothing is done about the problem. Lithuania needs to find a way to promote staying in the country and a way to get people to want to move there. Overall, this is a unique problem that not a lot of countries have.

Analysis:

          Lithuania is a country in Europe that currently has a problem with emigration. Too many people are leaving the country and its population is declining rapidly with each year. The growing concern right now is that the population is starting to consist of more of the elderly and not enough young people of working age to support the population. They are starting to have a higher dependency ratio which puts pressure on the people who do work.  A recent survey showed that people in Lithuania have less of an authoritarian populist view than other countries like Germany, UK, and France. As a result, there was a recent surprise in Lithuania’s parliamentary election. The Lithuanian Peasant and Greens Union party, which is founded by farmers, unexpectedly won the most seats in the parliament against all the other more popular parties. They took 54 out of the 141 seats which is more than the other parties. Prior to this election, this party only had one seat. Therefore, jumping from one seat to 54 shows that there is a lot of change happening in the country. This party campaigned on the fact that they can help stop emigration and keep people in. Since 2000, the country has been shrinking at a rapid rate and holds the title for the fastest decline in population in the EU. One reason for the mass emigration is Lithuania’s low wages. Also, most people move to other places in Europe due to the easiness of travel in the EU. Lithuania joined it in 2004 and since then its population has dropped by 500,000 because of the ability to travel freely within the countries in the union. All of the country itself is just three million people so half a million is a significant number. Right now Lithuania has a negative net-migration because more people are leaving than coming in. It is really struggling to support its shrinking and aging population and its prospects are even less compelling for young people because it seemingly has no opportunities. Currently, the country is projected to shrink by another 40% from now until 2080. Overall, this is very alarming for Lithuania and maybe with their new elected officials in the parliament they will be able to help solve the emigration problem.

Health in Africa

Unit 2: Population and Health

11/4/16

Original article can be found here

Synopsis:

          Currently, life in Africa is not the same as it used to be. Health has especially changed in the past hundred+ years. The diseases that used to do the most damage are not doing so now. This is because Sub-Saharan Africa is actually undergoing an epidemiological transition. So as the continent development increases, the most dangerous diseases become the non-communicable diseases rather than the communicable ones. Therefore, there are now more chronic diseases than those being passed down from one person to the next. In 1980 it used to be that tuberculosis and measles were some of the leading killer diseases but now it is mostly malaria and pneumonia. Sub-Saharan Africa has also underwent an improvement in life expectancy and lowered their Infant Mortality Rate as one would as they go through the demographic transition model. Preventable diseases are starting to occur less often because the continent is progressing.

Analysis:

           Africa has underwent a lot of changes in the past hundred+ years. Many factors of life, including disease and health has been changed. Right now, the problem has moved from communicable diseases to non-communicable ones such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. These diseases are causing a lot of deaths because they cannot be controlled, however, there has been an improvement in the preventable ones. As a result, the life expectancy has risen from 52 years old to 62 in just the last 15 years which is incredible. This was largely because of the decrease in deaths caused by diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and vaccine preventable ones like measles, and pneumonia. There are variations of that number throughout the different regions of Africa. These characteristics are that of a Stage 3 in the epidemiologic transition. Additionally, life expectancy was previously drastically affected by the Ethiopian drought and famine in the 1980’s as well as the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the HIV epidemic. So Africa is now slowly but steadily recovering from these catastrophes. Another improvement has been the lowering of the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in Africa. It was reduced by over half in some regions from the previous 850,000 children in 1990. This improvement has been steady in the last 15 years. This information from the study is instrumental because it shows Sub-Saharan Africa the areas that they need to work on in order to make life better. Health has changed and availability of treatment needs to be a reflection of that. Overall, Africa is going through an epidemiological transition and climbing up the development scale. Consequently, there has been progress in the health of Africa but it needs to go even further in order to catch up with the rest of the world.