Horvāti -3.46 miljoni 2050. gadā


According to Bosnjak, emigration from the country peaked last year and an increased number of births in 2018 heralded some really good news.

In 2020, Croatia’s demographic decline will stabilise and from then on, government policies will lead to an increase in population, he said.

Croatian women have an average of 1.44 children, which is not only below the 2.1 needed for replacing a country’s population, but the second-lowest of all the seven post-Yugoslav states.

A Demographic Revival Council was founded in 2017 to coordinate ministerial policies. A new strategy for halting and reversing Croatian decline is being prepared to replace a national population policy from 2006.

Bosnjak said huge sums were being invested in everything from kindergartens to agriculture, especially in areas that have been depopulating over the last quarter of a century, such as the east of the country.

The numbers who have gone abroad permanently since Croatia joined the EU represent five per cent of its population. A large proportion of them are young, of child-bearing and of working age. Increasingly whole families have departed.

The government hopes that measures such as making pension contributions for mothers on maternity leave will help push the fertility rate back up to 1.6 in the next couple of years. But a big problem is the nature of women’s employment.

A UN study predicts that Croatia’s population will fall to 3.46 million by 2050.

https://balkaninsight.com/2019/10/31/croatia-faces-long-term-stagnation-of-demographic-decline/