Depopulacija i starenje stanovništva – temeljni demografski procesi u Hrvatskoj
Depopulation and Ageing – Crucial Demographic Processes in Croatia

Summary/Abstract: After the postwar baby boom period Croatia has had a fertility decline caused by many general and specific factors. The fertility transition in Croatia has been accelerated under the impact of many specific factors (beside that general one), especially the factor of permanent emigration abroad. That is why in the 1980s, with a much lower level of economic development, Croatia recorded a similar level of the total 649 fertility rate as those in developed European countries. In the early 1990s the existing processes of generational depopulation of the female population and total (male and female) population were reinforced by the natural depopulation (excess of death over birth) aggravated by the war losses in 1991–1992. Those three depopulation processes caused a compound decline of total population in Croatia between 1991 and 2001. With accompanying negative changes in the age structure (decline in the number of young people – age group 0-14, with a steep rise in the number of the elderly) which resulted in the rapid ageing of the total population, depopulation trends will further determine the population development in Croatia. In such circumstances, a stimulative population policy in both variants (stimulating natality and destimulating emigration) becomes necessary for the present and future demographic and economic development of the country.

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