ZAGREB, July 2, 2018 – President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said on Monday at a meeting of the Demographic Revitalisation Council that she was looking forward to synergy and coordination of all bodies and segments of society in resolving the demographic problems in Croatia.
The president said that the issue of demographic revitalisation is fateful for the country’s future and the fact that the government has established the Demographic Revitalisation Council indicates that they share the same views in that regard. In the end, the National Security Strategy recognised demographic revival and revitalisation as one of Croatia’s nine strategic objectives.
She recalled the recent presentation of population policy measures prepared by her team aimed at setting the framework for a comprehensive action plan of demographic revitalisation that won’t just encompass population policy, but also the change of the country’s state of affairs.
She recalled the negative birth rate whether this be due to ageing or dying out and a low fertility rate, or due to migration from rural areas into urban areas or other countries and emigration of predominantly young people. That affects the composition of the population and of the labour force and in the end, the pension and health and other systems. This isn’t just about financial support to families but about a broad set of measures that above all are directed to economic growth and development, she added.
The end aim is to achieve equal conditions that exist in those countries where people are emigrating too, particularly young people, she said and added that the aim is development and quantity, such as an increased population and of quality measures directed to strengthening human resources. It is human resources in fact that today represent the main resource for growth and development of an economy, she underscored.
Today, human capital is the basic factor of work and development she said and added that this represents about 70% of general capital in the structure of modern developed countries. We are rapidly losing that capital and that is why it is good that we sat down together and that in synergy and coordination we embark on developing measures that will include all pores of society, she said.
She presented data which indicates that by 2051 Croatia could lose about 1.1 million people compared to the 2011 population census and today already there are less than 4 million people living in Croatia and with an exceptional imbalance in age structure. The cohort of young people is decreasing more and more while the cohort of the elderly is increasing.
She underscored that the number of ghost towns is growing and that there is a growing exodus of young people to EU countries. Their numbers are 2.6 times more than official statistics indicate and amount to about 250,000, she said and stressed the need to attract back human resources that the state has invested so much in.
She added that last year about 80,000 left Croatia, mostly young people.
Everything the government is planning on the most part overlaps with what I recommended, she said. She added that she was aware these measures could not be implemented immediately but could be in the medium and long term.
Strong measures for a development policy and pro-birth rate policy are essential but also a policy of immigration, Grabar-Kitarović said. The fact that previous demographic measures did not produce any results was because there was no coordination or monitoring of measures, she believes.
