There are benefits to having big populations working abroad.
Romania's huge diaspora sent roughly 2.6 billion euros ($3.4 billion) home to their families in 2011, some 2 percent of GDP - well below the remittances in the boom years before the economic crisis but still a lifeline for poor communities.
Working abroad also helps people acquire skills and many eventually return with those skills because of family links, said Roderick Parkes, of the foreign policy think-tank German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
And while an ageing population means older workers, they also have more experience, Parkes said.
"I think the panic is overdone and the reality is more nuanced," he said. "It could eventually be good for Romania."
Gabriela Gryger returned to Poland after working for Morgan Stanley, Soros Real Estate Partners and Goldman Sachs in London, New York and Frankfurt. Now in her mid-30s, she owns and runs a real estate investment agency in Warsaw.
"Poland has changed a lot," Gryger said. "The real estate industry that I deal with has opened widely to foreign investors and developers, which also made Poland an attractive place for me to work."
Headhunters in western Europe increasingly value professional experience in the emerging EU and are looking for candidates for posts in Poland, she said.
But in Romania, it's the downside that is far more obvious.
Lupsanu has lost nearly a tenth of its population since 2002 and more than 3 percent of those registered in the area work abroad, said mayor Victor Manea.
"Around 60 percent of the population in the commune is above 50, so I expect the population to continue dropping. Marriages are fewer and fewer, and the number of deaths is double the number of births in the last years," Manea said.
Pensioner Ene is struggling to make ends meet.
"I have a 300 lei ($90) pension and my husband has 600 lei," Ene said. "We live from one day to the next." ($1 = 0.7610 euros) ($1 = 3.3179 Romanian lei)
(Sam Cage reported from Bucharest; Additional reporting by Aleks Tapinsh in MERDZENE, Latvia and Joanna Bronowicka in WARSAW; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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