The most “green” population in Romania can be found, again this year, in Iași county. According to the provisional statistical data published by the National Institute of Statistics, the average age of Iași residents was, on July 1, 2022, 39.1 years, three years less than the average age for the entire country.

Other statistics also show that the North-East Development Region has the largest school population. Which means that now, in the classrooms of schools and universities in Moldova, the future employees are being prepared, those who will provide the pension fund for the current employees.

On the other hand, the North-East Region has the largest population, around 3.7 million inhabitants, followed by the South-Muntenia Region, 3.2 million, the South-East with 2.8 million and the North-West with 2.7 million.

We are, in terms of average age, the youngest, both within the region and at the level of macro-regions. If in the county of Iași the average in the middle of this year is 39.1 years (compared to 39 years in 2021), Cluj and the Municipality of Bucharest are in the “old” half of the country, with average ages of 42.6 and 43 respectively years.

The average age of men in Iasi county is 37.9 years, and that of women 40.4 years, while the average age of Romanian men is 40.5 years, and of women 43.6 years.

The youth of the county and the large number of children and young people of school age are good news. But that’s only if the schools manage to prepare them so that Iasi and the North-East Development Region don’t just deliver poorly paid labor. At this moment, the statistics also provide a good overview regarding the school population and the conditions that the schools in Iași offer to the country’s largest pool of future employees.

The North-East Region has almost 600,000 inhabitants from nursery age to post-graduate students, i.e. 17% of the country’s school population. And Iași, with a population of over 185,000 people in this category, is in second place in the country, after Bucharest. And Suceava, with a school population of 124,289 people, is in fifth place in the top counties with the most schoolchildren (excluding Bucharest).

Practically, a quarter of the children and young people from the north-east of the country are enrolled in school in Iasi, in Suceava 22%, in Bacău 17%, in Neamţ 13%, and in Botoşani and Vaslui 12% and 11%, respectively.

Why does Generation Z benefit from the poor region of May?

“Moldova is shaping up to be the biggest nursery of future employees in Romania, several counties in this region stand out for their “populations” of Gen Z, young people aged 10-24 years, much more than other regions of Romania. (…) Despite this advantage of youth, Moldova continues to be the poorest region in Romania, the lack of investment being explained mainly by the lack of infrastructure”, it is also stated in an analysis recently published by Ziarul Financiar, which calculates ” where the largest communities of young people between the ages of 10 and 24 are concentrated”.

Ziarul Financiar concluded that Iaşi and Suceava, along with Bucharest, Prahova and Constanța, have the largest population of Generation Z (10-24 years old), but draws attention that although “youth hubs can become factors in taking “. of investment decisions”, in the north-east and north-west of the country the biggest investments in production are in textiles, with employees often paid the minimum in the economy.

That is precisely why the training these children are receiving now is important. And the statistics provide an overview of the educational infrastructure. Why do the 17% of Romanian pupils and students studying in the North-East Region of the country benefit? 18% of classrooms (school classrooms or amphitheatres) that exist in Romania, 17% of school laboratories and 17% of school workshops. Even now, the division seems fair. But when it comes to sports, schools and authorities in the north-east of the country show a total lack of interest.

Only two school pools in six counties

As far as gymnastics is concerned, the North-Eastern Region is only in fourth place out of eight regions. Sports fields in the North-East Region in total only 16% of Romania, and regarding swimming pools we are in last place. In fact, in the entire region there are only two pools dedicated to the school population and both are in Suceava county. And Suceava leads at the regional level and in another chapter. Although Iași is the core of IT activities in the area, Suceava County owns 30% of the PCs and IT equipment in the educational infrastructure, while Iași has only 22%.

We compared the distribution of IT equipment in the North-East region with those in the North-West Region, the core of which is Cluj county. With a school population that hosts 14% of the total in Romania, the North-West region has all the infrastructure chapters an extra 1%-2%, has 8 swimming pools and, within the region, owns 52% of the IT and PC equipment -s, while the remaining 48% are divided between the counties of Maramureş (14%), Bihor (13%), Sălaj (9%), Satu-Mare (7%) and Bistrita Năsăud (5%).

89 faculties in the North-West, only 63 in the North-East

And the North-West Region far exceeds us in the number of faculties. With 89 faculties, distributed in all six component counties, the North-West covers 16% of the higher education infrastructure, 4% more than in the North-East Region (where there are 63 faculties, grouped in only four of six counties). ). Vaslui and Botoşani do not have any college.

And the statistics, this time the European ones, published by Eurostat, drew attention in October that among the EU member states in 2021, Romania is the country where the highest percentages of children exposed to the risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded ( 41.5%).

“Children who grow up in poverty or social exclusion experience difficulties in school performance, health and achieving their full potential later in life. They also face a greater risk of being unemployed, poor and socially excluded in adulthood”, the Eurostat press release states.

At the country level, according to Eurostat, 19.4% of the population of the North East Region face severe material shortages. And the South-East region is the most affected from this point of view (22.7% of the population faces severe shortages. That is, precisely the areas with the youngest population of the country, the regions that take care together constitute Macroregion two.