World Bank: Romania could earn EUR 2.9 billion by integrating its Roma

Newsroom 08/04/2014 | 09:35

Romania’s economy would only benefit on top of gaining hundreds of millions of euros a year in tax receipts if it integrated its young and impoverished Roma minority, a World Bank study showed on Monday quoted by the Global Post.

The government in Bucharest commissioned the study, that shows nine out of ten Roma live in severe material deprivation. Children under 14 years make up almost half of their number and only a third of Roma boys will still be in school at 16, and even fewer girls. A third of Roma who seek work will experience discrimination.

If Roma unemployment rates fell and wages rose, Romania could reap productivity gains between 887 million euros and 2.9 billion euros per year – up to 2 percent of GDP – and up to 675 million of extra taxes, the study found. A better educated Roma workforce would also fill an employment gap in the EU’s second poorest state, where the population has shrunk and aged rapidly since the fall of Communism in 1989, as younger Romanians left in search of a better life elsewhere.

“Inadequate education and skills and poor health hamper one’s access to earning opportunities,” said Kosuke Anan, a World Bank expert and co-author of the report. “At the same time, the lack of earning opportunities results in insufficient resources.”