Estonia releases population statistics

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Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 22:37:59 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Estonia releases population statistics

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Felix Corley <[email protected]>

Estonia releases population statistics


Tuesday, November 24, 1998
MONITOR - A DAILY BRIEFING ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
 
ESTONIA RELEASES POPULATION STATISTICS. Data just released by Estonia
throw a long-awaited light both on the country's ethnic composition in
the post-Soviet era and on the legal status of the nonindigenous
population. Compiled by the Citizenship and Migration Board, the data
show ethnic Estonians at 65.1 percent, Russians at 28.2 percent,
Ukrainians at 2.6 percent, Belarusans at 1.5 percent, and several
other ethnic groups subtotaling 2.6 percent of Estonia's total
population as of last January.
 
The total registered population as of last January was 1.454 million,
including 1,075 million citizens, 323,000 documented resident aliens
and some undocumented resident aliens. The "alien" category (a legal,
not an ethnic category) encompasses the Soviet-era population influx.
In this category, 311,000 had fixed-term residency permits and almost
12,000 permanent residency permits as of July 1998. There were at the
same time 8,849 retired Soviet soldiers with 7,400 dependents residing
in Estonia by special permission. During 1997, 101,000 resident aliens
were granted citizenship through naturalization (BNS, November 23).
 
The data show, first, that a small nation which had seemed slated to
be turned into a minority in its own country has gained an
irreversible lease on life through post-Soviet demographic changes.
Second, the figures indicate that Estonia is making progress toward
becoming an inclusive society through naturalization, which is based
on clearly defined residency and language qualifications. Third, the
figures suggest that enfranchisement of the nonindigenous population
can be managed without throwing the political system off balance,
provided that the enfranchisement process remains gradual and is
thereby implicitly pegged to the alien population's generational
change.
 
http://www.jamestown.org
The Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation.

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