According to the chairman of "EuroOptimists" Roman Gotsiridze, the main cause of "catastrophic demography" is emigration.

As Gotsiridze points out, if rapid economic growth does not occur and the situation does not change, the country will be empty and the nation will be on the road to extinction.

"The created situation can, without exaggeration, be described as a catastrophe, since the rate of natural increase has been decreasing for the last 10 years. If in 2014 the number of births was 11,000 more than the number of deaths, it decreased to zero over the years and has been negative for the last 4 years. That is, instead of a natural increase in the country, there is a decrease - the number of deaths is greater than the number of births. What is wrong with this - if we exclude 2021, when the pandemic was the main factor, the rest, over the years, the reason is emigration - unemployment, poverty, hardship, rising prices lead to emptying the country. In 2022, 101,000 of our citizens left, we do not have statistics for 2023, and there would probably be one more. Young people leave, citizens close to or over retirement age return. From 2012 to 2023, 800 thousand citizens stayed abroad as immigrants. It returned to 500 thousand and we lost about 300 thousand citizens, which is Batumi, Gori and Zugdidi taken together. These three cities evaporated. These are mainly young people - part of the labor and reproductive force. Therefore, the main cause of this catastrophic demography is emigration. If there is no rapid economic growth and no change in this situation and the government, the country will become empty and we will be on the path to extinction, which is sometimes officially referred to as depopulation. In fact, this is called the extinction of the nation", said Roman Gotsiridze.

For information, according to Geostat data, 42,756 people died in Georgia in 2023, and 40,214 children were born.

Thus, last year, a negative natural increase (the difference between the number of live births and deaths) was recorded in Georgia and was determined by -2,542 units. In addition, a negative natural increase was recorded in all regions, except for Tbilisi, Adjara Autonomous Republic and Kvemo Kartli region.