Vlad Filat
We are no longer talking about a simple statistical fluctuation, but about an unprecedented demographic collapse that fundamentally changes the future of our country.
This was stated by former Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat.
In total, between 2021 and 2025, Moldova will lose 286.6 thousand people. Moldova will lose 286.6 thousand inhabitants. Of these, 230.7 thousand were due to emigration abroad, and another 55.9 thousand were due to negative natural population decline, i.e. mortality significantly exceeded birth rate.
“I have said it many times and I will say it again: the main problem of the Republic of Moldova is not inflation, budget deficit or public debt. The number one problem is the rapid disappearance of the population,” the politician recalled.
Migration
The first component of this tragedy is migration, which has reached unprecedented proportions. Over the past five years, annual net migration has amounted to about 1.7% of the population – more than during the first major wave of emigration in the early 2000s, when about 1.4% of the population left the country annually.
In total, about 230,000 people left Moldova during this period– a figure comparable to the first mass emigration wave and almost double the level of the Alliance for European Integration period(the time when Filat was prime minister – editor’s note), when about 109,000 people left the country during a similar period of time.
“However, the fundamental difference is different. Back then, people left because of hopelessness – it was a migration of survival. Today, they leave because of a loss of confidence in the future. Young, educated and active people are leaving the country, who no longer believe that they can build their lives here,” Filat says self-critically.
The most affected age group is people between 25 and 44 years old, i.e. the key segment for the economy and birth rate. Almost half of the representatives of this group are already outside the country.
This means not only an accelerated loss of labor force, but also a decrease in domestic consumption, investments and economic growth prospects. It is these people who are the main consumers of the economy and young parents giving birth to children.
Moldova is rapidly approaching the moment when more than half of the children of Moldovan citizens will be born outside the country, not in the Republic of Moldova.
Children who are already abroad
And here the second extremely dangerous phenomenon manifests itself – children who actually no longer live in this country. If we look at the age category 0-14 years, we can see the most rapid growth of the share of children who are abroad. And we are talking not only about children who emigrated with their families, but also about those who were already born abroad, in the families of emigrants, for whom Moldova exists only in the stories of parents and grandparents.
Today, 17.6% of Moldovan children are already outside the country.
This is how generations disappear. This is how a state slowly dies.
Death rate exceeds birth rate
The third phenomenon is the negative natural population growth, which has reached the most dramatic figures since the Second World War. Over the last five years, Moldova’s population has naturally decreased by more than 76 thousand people.
The negative natural increase started after 1995, except for a short period of hope in 2014-2016, when Moldova cumulatively recorded a positive natural increase of about 3.2 thousand people.
Today, however, the number of births has fallen to just over 20,000 per year, a level that has not been recorded in the territory for about two hundred years.
In fact, the Republic of Moldova is entering an accelerated process of population aging and disappearance.
And against the background of this historical drama, triumphalist slogans, cheap PR and statistical manipulations about alleged “economic success” look not just cynical, but deeply irresponsible.
The nearly 290,000 citizens lost in just five years is not just a statistic. This is the most severe verdict on the state in which Moldova finds itself today, the former prime minister concludes.
The World Bank confirms
Earlier it was reported that, according to the World Bank, Moldova ranks 4th in the list of countries and territories whose population in 2024 would decrease the fastest.
