The Center for New Ideas conducted a survey among Belarusian youth and, among other things, asked if they wanted to emigrate and which countries they considered best for relocation.
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As the results of the survey showed, there is no mass intention among young people to leave Belarus. Only one in ten respondents (11%) stated their desire to leave within the next 3-5 years. At the same time, every second (53%) assured that they want to stay. A significant proportion of those are hesitant and will make a decision depending on circumstances — 36%.
Researchers also asked young people for their opinion on which countries are most suitable for them to live in. The authors emphasize that their goal was to study the perception of different states, rather than to rank their actual availability for relocation. The researchers argue that such perceptions are often built on stereotypes and ideas formed under the influence of the external environment, which was the main subject of their interest.
It is noteworthy that even those who do not intend to emigrate at all answered this question. Since the proportion of such people in the sample is the largest, it is quite natural that the most popular answer was "nowhere" (33%). Nevertheless, many of those who plan to stay in Belarus still named other countries that seem attractive to them.
According to the survey results, Russia came in first place (26%). But Poland (24%) and Germany (23%) were not far behind. Distant China (18%) entered the top five, surpassing Belarus's neighbor — Lithuania (12%). The remaining countries, regardless of which continent they are on, received approximately the same number of votes.
The authors note that the coexistence of Russia, Poland, Germany, and China in the answers indicates the absence of a rigid geopolitical attachment among young people. Different countries appear in their consciousness in parallel and do not exclude each other.
At the same time, the authors of the study note that it cannot be argued that every choice is based on a clear value position. These answers reflect rather the ideas of where it is better to live. Young people's views can be formed through personal connections, stories from acquaintances, media, and popular stereotypes about income, freedom, or career opportunities.
Such a distribution, as the researchers note, allows us to speak about the pragmatic nature of orientations: countries are perceived as different types of opportunities. But pragmatism does not exclude the influence of media images: ideas about "a country of opportunities" can be both instrumental and symbolic at the same time. It is highly probable that the answers are based not so much on ideology as on the search for an environment where personal efforts, in the opinion of the respondents, are more likely to bring the desired result.
465 respondents aged 18 to 35 took part in the survey. The data was reweighted by gender and region of residence in accordance with official Belstat statistics for 2022. The maximum statistical error is about 4.5 percentage points.
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