February the 5th, 2026 – An extremely concerning 600,000 people could leave Croatia by 2050 according to both the UN and Eurostat, but what could turn that trend around?
As Index vijesti/news writes, according to Eurostat and UN projections, Croatia is currently facing an absolutely catastrophic loss of around 600,000 people by 2050.
The HRT show Otvoreno/Open recently discussed whether the new Demographic Renewal Act has any change whatsoever at reversing such negative trends, especially given the recent increase in the number of births and the return of 15,000 Croats to the country.
croatia’s population has been declining at an alarming rate for years
Sanja Klempić Bogadi, Head of the Department for Migration and Demographic Research, explained that demographic projections are based on the movement of fertility, mortality and migration and have shown for years now that Croatia will be among the countries with by far the largest population decline.
“What definitely represents a massive challenge for Croatia is that we have a very, very bad combination. There’s a combination of low fertility rates, migration and long-term emigration, that all creates a negative demographic momentum,” she said.
According to her, to achieve results in a relatively short time, the most effective way would be to focus on increasing the quality of life in the country. “Retain the existing population and affirm return migration, which would be very important at this time, and certainly create an attractive environment for immigrants to stay and for family reunification,” said Klempić Bogadi.
there are immigrants and migrants – but that’s not always a good thing, nor is it enough
Mladen Barać, State Secretary at the Ministry of Demography and Immigration, highlighted some positive indicators. Them being enough to prevent 600,000 people from wanting to leave Croatia however is unlikely to say the least.
“Last year, the specific preliminary figure was that 316 more children were born in Croatia. We believe that when all the data is harmonised, that figure will probably be around 500. We’re optimistic that that figure will actually mean 15 more grades of school children or one more school in the future,” he said.
Speaking about the measures, Barać emphasised a significant increase in benefits. “We’ve increased the amount of maternity benefits by 100%, while parental benefits are covered by the maximum census by almost 700%,” he revealed. He added that local governments are being helped through public calls to expand the network of kindergartens and build playgrounds to enable parents to strike a better balance between work and family life.
“The data related to immigrants corresponds to the fact that we’ve recorded an increase in the number of returnees and immigrants, which is an important second pillar if we want to achieve stabilisation,” he concluded.
more money to play with and better infrastructure is nowhere near enough
SDP MP Anita Curiš Krok stated that her party welcomes any improvement in citizens’ rights, but also warned that demographic policy isn’t just a matter of money.
“Family policy isn’t based only on cash transfers and the construction of infrastructure, services are also important,” she said, before highlighting the reconciliation of private and work life, flexible working hours for mothers, greater availability of public kindergartens and affordable housing as key measures. “If you don’t have a home, how will you even manage to start a family?” she asked.
Curiš Krok believes that in order for Croatia to bypass losing 600,000 people by 2025, national demographic policy must be systematic because short-term solutions are simply nowhere near even close to being enough.
“We’re extremely disappointed by the very low number of people returning, but people simply don’t see the perspective or justice here. They don’t see security and when they go to live in a properly regulated country, it is very unlikely that they will ever return,” she concluded.
