Lithuanian Students’ Attitudes Towards Emigration: Structure and Shift During 2003–2017

Abstract

Problem of emigration of young citizens of Lithuania who pursue higher education is analyzed in the present article. The aim is to reveal attitudes of academic young people and their intentions to leave the country as well as approach to the emigration and changes of the said approach in 2003, 2007, and 2017.

Students from various Lithuanian universities and colleges who in the questionnaire indicated as being Lithuanians participated in the study. Attitude towards emigration study was performed using a closed type, anonymous questionnaire of fifteen items, which has been developed by the authors of the present article. Using factor validation statements that reflect attitudes were extracted into three subscales that were conditionally labeled as Rational, Cosmopolitan, and Ethnocentric attitude towards emigration.

The performed quantitative analysis results have revealed that assessments of emigration attitudes in the first, the second, and the third study differ significantly. It has been established that rational attitude was weakening and later strengthening, the ethnocentric attitude, conversely, was strengthening and later weakening while the cosmopolitan attitude was continuously weakening.

Student statistical types by the emigration attitude subscales and their spread in each study have been revealed. After having performed three measurements, the same, but slightly differently spread student statistical types have been determined – mobile cosmopolitan and settled ethnocentric.

It has been determined that demographic indexes affect student cosmopolitan attitudes the most and rational attitudes the least, but effect of demographic factors is not systemic.