Revija za sociologiju, Vol. 5 No. 1-2, 1975.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Social Aspects of Demographic Changes in SR Croatia
Mladen Friganović
; Geografski odsjek Prirodoslovno-matematski fakultet, Zagreb, Marulićev trg 19
Sažetak
The present territory of the Socialist Republic of Croatia is characterized by its outstanding demographic dynamic-structural distinctions within Yugoslavia. The roots of these distinctions are to be found in the end of the 19th century when the classical emigration, first from Croatian Littoral then from inland parts of Croatia to overseas countries, started. The reasons of the emigration were rather complex though. When considering Croatian Littoral, on one hand, the emigration was primarily caused by its trade-geographic position towards the overseas ship routes as well as it was caused by bad vine and crisis in marketing of wine. On the other hand, the-peasant debts were of greater'importance for the emigration which took place in the parts of Pannonia. »Pull factors« of the overseas countries as the »promised« ones for employment and wages should be added to »Push factors«. And indeed, a considerable expansion of farming and population can be noticed there.
The emigration thus started had been followed later by other periodic emigrations. Those leaving were mostly the young and the male what resulted in a truncated age and sex structures of the population of SR Croatia. In this way, objective possibilities for a greater natural reproduction of demographic masses were lessened. That resulted in some unfavorable social phenomena and above all in an old demographic structure (relatively a great number of old contingent as opposed to a small number of young contingent), as well as it resulted in even emptier areas of the rural parts of the country. Still greater exodus took place after the World War II when the population of the country, by the side of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, had mostly suffered. That exodus was specially strong after the fifties. That was the time of a greater industrialization and town planning in all our country. The polarization of a town and a village became stronger and deagrarian process became a dominant one. The process grew even stronger in the sixties. The liberalization of the labor market at that time made it possible for the redundant labor to go abroad (the problem of the workers' going abroad was present but latent till that time). So the period 1961—1971 was an interval of the greatest changes and social disturbances in a village and town after the World War II. Three fourth of the territory of the Socialist Republic of Croatia assumed then all the characteristics of an exodus with the explicit depopulation which took hold of 57% communes and 33% inhabitants of SR Croatia. Leaving apart communal centers, all those areas have been demographically truncated and less capable for their proper reproduction. The correlation between these areas and those, which have been proclaimed relatively underdeveloped, is very high. Such areas also have a very old age structure (they mostly fall into the category of demographic old age and into the category of advanced demographic old age). In this way, a village, particularly on smaller islands and in mountainous parts of the country, has become a social problem. By all judgments, the population of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, especially the population out of the towns, shows nowadays all the characteristics of aging which do not harmonize with the degree of the achieved socio-economic development or the theory of demographic transition. The population of the Socialist Republic of Croatia thus shows atypical characteristics becoming thus an important social problem. Because, if we consider the established rate of growth of the division of labor and the general development, the existing dynamics and the population structure of the three fourth of the territory of SR Croatia will not be able to satisfy, by means of its own natural dynamics and age structure, the future needs of the society. And in the end, the comparison shows that the aging of the population of Croatia has been faster than the rhythm of aging of the population of France and Great Britain and equally as fast as that of the populations of Sweden and West Germany which are, as is being known, far ahead of our country in the sense of economic development. Is not such a discrepancy between demographic processes and socio-economic development a phenomenon? Has not a man, in his constant longing for the faster and faster development of his material base, for a moment still forgotten himself?
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
156393
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.6.1975.
Posjeta: 741 *