Original scientific paper
The Central Phase of Demographic Transition: The Population of the Island of Lopud (1870-1880)
Aida Cvjetković
Dubravka Mehaković
Jakov Gelo
Abstract
The island of Lopud owes its nineteenth-century demographic landscape to two major determinants: viewed territorially and historically, Lopud used to be part of the Dubrovnik Republic which, up to 1808, was the most developed Croatian region, and second, the island was oriented towards seafaring. All the basic demographic indicators—the number of inhabitants, natural population dynamics, mean age at marriage and the age structure by death—show that Lopud followed the overall movement of the population of the former Dubrovnik Republic, and that by the period 1870-1880, Lopud had already reached the central phase of the process of demographic transition. The mean natality rate (27.96‰) is smaller than expected for the central phase of the transitional process and should not be attributed to the process itself, but rather to the longterm absence of the mariners from the island, which affected the frequency of births. The age structure by death reveals that the transition affected infants (through a decline in mortality) and the elderly contingent (through higher life expectancy). The overall infant mortality (19.70%), together with that of the children up to the age of four (39.07%) is considerably lower than in most Croatian parishes under study. As many as 11% of the population lived to be 80, by far exceeding all the twelve parishes analysed in this project.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
39129
URI
Publication date:
10.6.2009.
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