The Croatian demographic crisis is continuing to bite and its grip is becoming tighter in many areas, with the labour force being one of the most pressing issues caused by the country’s increasingly poor demographic outlook. Still, in some areas, such as Novigrad Podravski in continental Croatia, more babies are being born as demographic measures are employed in hope of persuading families to stay.
As Novac writes on the 14th of January, 2020, the municipality of Novigrad Podravski finally welcomed a real ”baby boom” in 2019 after years of extremely poor demographics. Given the Croatian demographic crisis which has spread far from the region of Slavonia, where there have been major issues for a long time, to the rest of the country, Novigrad Podravski’s Zdravko Brljek has reason to be pleased.
As was announced on the municipality’s website, a total of 165,000 kuna was paid out to parents residing in the municipality for the births of their newborn children in 2019, local portal Podravski reports.
Since the individual amount per child is 5,000 kuna, it can be seen that the money had been paid out to the parents of 33 newborns, two of whom are twins.
”I’m pleased that we were financially able to pay 5,000 kuna per child to parents within less than five working days of the request having been received,” said Brljek.
He also recalled the fact that in a local primary school in Novigrad Podravski, fifteen students enrolled in the first grade back in 2016, fifteen students enrolled in 2017, a further fifteen students enrolled in 2018, and then nineteen students enrolled last year.
”This year has greatly improved the municipal demographic. I hope that most of these young people will stay in our municipality and that as many young people as possible come back here or move here,” Brljek concluded.
Unfortunately, the demographic picture regarding newborns in Koprivnica-Križevci County, in which Novigrad Podravski is situated, is otherwise not so positive and reflects the overall Croatian demographic crisis accurately.
Namely, in 2019, according to data from the aforementioned county, 866 children were born, which is fifteen less than one year before when 881 children were born. Thus, the positive trend that started in 2018 compared to 2017 when 860 children were born came to a halt once again.
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