Original scientific paper
Ivo NEJAŠMIĆ
Abstract
In the work the author analyses demographic changes
in post-socialist European countries in the 1990s. Nineteen
countries have been included with a total of 339.4 million
inhabitants. Between 1990 and 1999 the overall population
of analysed countries decreased by 5.6 million people or
1.6%. The general (overall) depopulation affected almost
all countries. The birth rate fell in the total population
from 13.6‰ to 9.0‰, and all countries experienced
a decline. In the late 1990s the "birth norm" was lowered
to an average of one child per family (with the exception
of Albania). All countries in which the process of
demographic transition was not completed until the late
1980s rapidly entered the post-transitional stage after the
year 1990, with the exception again of Albania and
Macedonia (which is on the threshold of this stage).
In post-socialist countries (in general) natural depopulation
has occurred, with a clear tendency towards a growth of
negative values. In the overall population the share
of older people "65 and over" amounts to 12.9%;
there is a strong trend of demographic senescence.
The most favourable demographic situation is in Albania,
followed by Slovakia, SR Yugoslavia, Poland, Macedonia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Lithuania, the Czech
Republic, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Belarus, Estonia,
Bulgaria, Ukraine and finally Latvia with the worst
demographic indicators. In the 1990s in almost
all European post-socialist countries a demographic
collapse occurred! Such demographic circumstances
have already become a limiting factor for the
economic and social development of the countries
analysed.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
19674
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2002.
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