Almost 600,000 Romanian children and young people aged between 0 and 19 years, that is 12.6% of the total Romanian people in this age group, were living in 2018 in other EU member states.
Romania ranks first in terms of children living outside the country of birth, regardless of whether it is considered the absolute number or the share in the age segment under 20.
The actual number is even higher, says a report from the Knowledge Center on Migration and Demography (KCMD), operating under the European Commission, as information on seven states is lacking, some of them having important communities of Romanians – the UK, France and Greece.
The number of these children and young people from Romania well exceeds Syrian children, according to the statistics presented in the report:
- 592,000 Romanian children
- about 400,000 children from each Syria and Morocco
- the 240,000 Polish children rank second, after the Romanian ones, by intra-EU migration and fourth, if migration from third countries is included
Altogether, children from Romania and Poland settled abroad account for 45% of intra-EU migrants aged between 0 and 19.
Related to the total population from the age segment analyzed, the situation is as follows:
- Romanian children and young people under 20 living in another member state represent 12.6% of the total Romanian population of these ages
- children born in Bulgaria who emigrated – 9.3% of the total number of Bulgarian citizens of this age
- Croatia – 7.5%
- Estonia – 5.6%
- Lithuania – 5%
- Latvia – 4.3%
- those born in Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Greece and Hungary – about 3%
With a mention that statistics do not include seven member states.
At the EU level, about 6.9 million children and young people under 20 (7% of European citizens of this age) live in a different country than the one where they were born.