Croatia’s declining population in numbers.
In just three years, the population of Croatia has shrunk by the size of Dubrovnik, according to estimates of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics. According to the data released yesterday, Croatia in mid-2014 had a population of 4,238,389 – exactly 42,233 people less than during the census in 2011. Compared to the estimates made for mid-2013, in just one year the population fell by more than 17,000, which is by far the largest annual decline since 2001, reports Jutarnji List on September 13, 2015.
These are the estimates made on the basis of data on natural change in population and official data on migrations: experts agree that the decrease has certainly been larger because the number of people who have left the country, according to all international indicators, is significantly higher than the official data.
“Last year, the smallest number of children was born since the data have been collected, just over 39,000 of them. Emigration has been facilitated by the entry of Croatia into the EU, the crisis has been going on for years, and the unemployment rate is very high. These are the main reasons why even official data show an extremely high decline in population”, says Ivan Čipin from the Department of Demography at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. Croatia also has a relatively high mortality rate: about 12 people die for every 1,000 inhabitants, which is one of the higher rates in the EU.
The birth rate has also been very low for a number of years, which fundamentally changes the structure of the population: there are significantly more those older than 65 than children under 14. In the last 30 years, the number of children has decreased by about seven percentage points, while the number of people older than 65 has increased by the same rate. The fastest growing age group in Croatia are those older than 85.
The average age of the population is also rising: in the middle of the last year, the average resident was 42.4 years old (40.5 years for men, 44 years for women). Thus, Croatia has one of the oldest populations in Europe. In comparison with 1991, the average inhabitant is five years older.
The falling population trend has engulfed almost the entire country. There are only three counties – Istria, Dubrovnik-Neretva and the City of Zagreb – which last year recorded an increase in population, but there is no particular reason for optimism: the highest growth, which was recorded in Zagreb, amounted to only 0.37 percent, while the population of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County has increased by only 158 people. The steepest drop was experienced by the Sisak-Moslavina County.
