Emigrants: 5 times as many immigrants as those born in Israel

The Knesset's Committee on Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs convened a special meeting Wednesday to discuss the increasing emigration of Israeli citizens in recent months.

According to some of the statistics presented at the meeting, the emigration rate of recent Israeli immigrants from Eastern European countries is five times higher than that of native Israelis.

The statistics indicate that the primary motivations for emigration – both among new immigrants and among native Israelis – are largely financial: unemployment, rate of living, high tax rates, and more.

The committee meeting (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

Another big motivation is for students and researchers to continue their education abroad, where conditions are better than in Israel.

The most up-to-date statistic from 2006 was presented by CEO of the Israeli Association for Immigrant Children Eli Zarkhin, who stated that hundreds of high school students leave Israel every year.

They have a hard time integrating into the Israeli school system and go to Russia or Ukraine to complete their qualifying exams.

Many of them plan to and indeed return to Israel, however many do not feel that they fit with the Israeli culture and prefer to stay in a country where it's easier to integrate financially and professionally.

Educated Israelis go abroad

According to a report presented by a representative from the Central Statistics Bureau, emigration among non-Jewish Eastern European immigrants is twice as high as among recent immigrants from the same countries of origin who are Jewish.

The committee received data from research conducted by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption on immigrants who arrived in Israel from former Soviet Bloc countries between 1989 and the end of 2002.

The findings showed that 1.5 of every 1,000 native-born Israeli citizens left the country during this period, whereas 7.4 of every 1,000 of the aforementioned immigrants left the country.

Within the period of time researched, 72,000 out of 939,000 immigrants emigrated from Israel (7.6 percent). Over nine thousand of them immigrated to Russian and 5,250 to Ukraine.

The emigration rate of these immigrants has increase over the years – 3.8 percent of those who arrived in Israel in 1990 left within their first five years in the country. In 1997 – 6.7 percent of those who arrived in Israel left within the first five years.

A recent study on 'brain-drain' from Israel, conducted by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, examined emigration rates from 1995 to 2002, based on the parameters of profession, income, family status, and number of years in Israel.

The study's primary findings indicated that the rate of emigration among educated Israelis – 3.8 percent – is much higher than among Israelis who are less educated. According to the researchers, Israel loses many of its brightest undergraduates to foreign countries, primarily in Europe or North America, post-BA.

Young educated Israelis sometimes stay abroad after completing their studies because, in many cases, they receive higher salaries and have access to more advanced infrastructure for research. The data was consistent both for new immigrants and native-born Israelis.

According to the same study, although many young educated Israelis among Eastern European immigrants emigrate from Israel to western countries, its also quite common for them to return to Russia.

The explanation for this is that Russia allows educated citizens to enjoy a higher stander of living than Israel does for citizens with the same level of education. In addition to having lower taxes (only 13 percent), the market in Russia is more flexible and allows young, educated people to be more competitive.