Abstract
This paper reviews the factors that have recently elevated the emigration potential of Russia and Eastern Europe. It also assesses that potential in the light of a unique February 1991 survey of 4,269 respondents conducted in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Bearing in mind the volatility of the situation in the region, it is demonstrated that the proportion of adults wishing to emigrate from each of these countries in February 1991 varied from a low of 2 per cent in Lithuania to a high of 13 per cent in Poland. Total emigration potential from the region is estimated to have been between 10.2 and 16.7 million. An analysis of bivariate relationships shows that there were negligible rural-urban and educational differences between potential emigrants and others, while young men who were pessimistic about their country's economic and political prospects tended more than others to desire emigration. A multiple regression analysis indicates that age and pessimism concerning democracy are the main factors that were independently associated with desire to emigrate.
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