CRRC data suggests that every fifth person was considering leaving Georgia for work in 2023, with men, younger people, people with poorer economic standings, and supporters of the opposition reporting that emigration is a better option than staying in Georgia.
Emigration has become a hot topic in everyday discourse in Georgia; the media is rife with stories about people who have decided to leave their jobs and families in search of better opportunities in the West, with many migrants taking significant risks through illegal emigration to Mexico in search of the American Dream.
Data published by Mexico indicates that 9,468 Georgians crossed the border between 2021 and 2023. A recent report from Georgia’s National Statistics Office shows that 125,269 people emigrated from Georgia in 2022, the vast majority of whom were Georgians. This is a 25.3% increase compared to statistics from 2021.
Data from CRRC and NDI’s regular surveys suggests that a significant share of the public was considering migrating for work in 2023.
The survey, conducted in December 2022, showed that every fifth person in Georgia reported that it was very likely (3%) or likely (16%) that they will go abroad for work in the next 12 months.
The data show that a number of groups are more likely to be considering migrating for work than others.
Men are ten percentage points more likely to report they are willing to go abroad for work than women, controlling for other factors.
People under 55 are substantially more likely to be interested in going abroad for work. While 18–34-year-olds are 24 percentage points more likely to report they are interested in going abroad in the next 12 months, 35–54-year-olds are 21 percentage points more likely to say they want to leave than people 55 and older.
After controlling for other factors, a quarter of the people in Tbilisi (27%) are considering emigrating abroad, compared with one in six residents of other urban (21%) and rural areas (16%).
Ethnic minorities were eight points more likely than ethnic Georgians to be interested in emigration.
Opposition supporters are ten percentage points more likely to be interested in migrating abroad for work than Georgian Dream supporters, controlling for other factors.
When it comes to economic factors, those who reported that their household either doesn’t have enough money for food or is only able to buy food but not clothes were more likely to report wanting to emigrate than those who are better off.
There was no statistically significant difference between employed and unemployed people in terms of migration interest.
Note: The chart above was generated from a regression model. The model includes gender (male, female), age group (18–34, 35–54, 55+), settlement type (capital, urban, rural), education (secondary or lower, secondary technical, tertiary), ethnicity (Georgian, ethnic minority), party respondent names as closest to his/her views (Georgian Dream, opposition party, did not name a party (Don’t know, Refuse to answer, No party)), employment status (Employed, unemployed), and a household’s economic situation.
Despite the difficulties associated with emigration, many people see going abroad for work in 2023 as a better option than staying in Georgia. This applies especially to men, younger people, residents of Tbilisi, ethnic minorities and those who report having poorer economic standing. Time will tell how this attitude will be reflected in actual migration statistics.
This article was written by Elene Ergeshidze, a researcher at CRRC-Georgia. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Georgia, NDI, or any related entity.
Georgia’s parliamentary elections on 26 October, unlike the previous vote, will be held without any gender quotas. As women’s representation in Georgian politics remains an issue, we have examined the electoral lists of all the major parties and groupings and ranked them based on how many women they included — and how highly they were placed.
The ruling Georgian Dream party pushed through mandatory gender quotas ahead of the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 local elections in an apparent bid to pro
Georgians will go to the polls on 26 October in crucial parliamentary elections.
Unlike in previous years, this election will be held under a fully proportional system. This means parties will be allocated a percentage of parliament’s 150 seats based entirely on the percentage of votes they receive nationwide, doing away with elections for individual MPs in single-seat constituencies.
However, despite calls from many smaller parties, and despite previously promising the opposite, the ruling
The ruling Georgian Dream party has tabled a package bill of anti-queer legislation and amendments, coming in the wake of years of rhetoric condemning ‘LGBT propaganda’. OC Media breaks down the changes, their impacts, and the ruling party’s rhetoric on the subject.
On 10 June, a group of ruling party lawmakers led by Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili tabled a bill centred on a law ‘on protection of family values and minors’ and associated amendments to 18 existing laws.
The bill is
The effects of climate change are increasingly being felt acutely in Georgia. A CRRC poll investigated Georgian people’s perception of climate change, and found that 90% of respondents considered it to be an important issue, and 75% had experienced changes in local weather patterns.
Climate change is increasingly having catastrophic impacts around the world, from an increase in insect-borne infectious disease to a rise in deadly heatwaves, flooding, and storms.
These impacts are also being
