The Baltic miracle? The economic crisis and its consequences for young people in the labor market of the Baltic states, 2007–2017

ABSTRACT

The financial crisis (2008–2009) resulted in significant deterioration of the youth labor market in the Baltic states. In 2017, however, the Baltic states were among the countries with the highest employment-to-population ratio in Europe (the ‘Baltic Miracle’). This article shows that the observed progress is mostly due to the demographic changes in the three countries. Isolating the demographic effect demonstrated that it played crucial role in mitigating the negative effects of the crisis, especially in Latvia and Lithuania. The results of the study show that in 2017 only in Estonia had the youth labor market returned to its precrisis conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Baltic states
• crisis
• demographic effect
• Great Recession
• labor market effect
• youth employment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Nevertheless, one must be cautious when analyzing the data. The view on the effect of the crisis on youth unemployment in the Baltic states can be misleading. It is often stressed that many young people do not register as unemployed while they are not entitled to unemployment benefits. During the recession, however, the labor offices increased their activities, so the interest in registering increased (Unt 2012; ILO 2012b).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre Poland under Grant 2013/11/B/HS5/03618.

Notes on contributors

Piotr Michoń

Piotr Michoń is an associate professor at Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. His research interests focus on family policy, labor market, and well-being, with specific emphasis on the division of household work, reconciliation of work and family obligations, and youth employment. He is a board member of European Network for Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet) and The Polish Society for Social Policy. He is a member of International Society for Quality of Life Studies. He was a leader of Polish team in the research projects: WOLIWEB (VI EU Framework Programme), EUROOCCUPATIONS (VII EU FP), and NEGOTIATE (Horizon 2020).