Estonia sees population growth amid record fall in births

TALLINN. May 23 (Interfax) - The population of Estonia grew 2.6% in 2022 despite a record fall in birth, as immigrants moved in.

"Almost 50,000 new residents moved to Estonia in the year of exceptional migration, while slightly fewer than 10,000 persons, or five times less, moved out of Estonia. Hence, there has been a migration surplus for eight consecutive years, and the population of Estonia has grown by almost 40,000 people thanks to immigration," Statistics Department lead analyst Kristjan Erik Loik said in the statistics blog on Tuesday.

Most immigrants come from Ukraine, as two-thirds of the newcomers are Ukrainian citizens.

Estonia took in 49,414 immigrants in 2022, or more than twice more than the year before, which was the year of the highest immigration in the post-Soviet history of Estonia.

The number of immigrants exceeded the number of emigrants (9,657) almost five times, he said.

Immigration has been growing amid a record low birth rate. The demographic statistical observations, which started in 1919, had never seen fewer than 12,000 births in Estonia until only 11,646 children were born in 2022.

As of January 1, 2023, Estonia had a population of 1,357,739,