According to the new census, Croatia has 3,888,529 inhabitants, which means that it has lost 400,000 inhabitants since the last census in 2011, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced.
Index.hr reports that since the 1948 census, Croatia has not recorded such a low number. Since 1991, it has lost 895,736 inhabitants, almost all of Zagreb. The drastic drop in population begins a year after Tudjman’s overwhelming HDZ victory in the country’s first democratic elections. Although the war broke out since then, and other political options had power, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) spent most of the time in power.
Why and how it happened is yet to be discussed, and analyses have yet to be done. The media has published many stories of people and even entire families who sought happiness outside of Croatia. Most of them are employed or unemployed, who left Croatia in search of a better life. An Index poll in 2018 asked why people left Croatia, and corruption, primitivism, religious obstinacy, and nationalism were cited as the main reasons.
In parallel with the emigration, there is an increase in the number of employees in counties, cities, and municipalities in Croatia. These employees have kept in power the same politicians and the same political, social, and economic ideas that have led to the disappearance of almost half a million people since 2011.
From 2002 to 2019, the number of employees in counties increased from 1,237 to 2,409, in cities from 7,170 to 10,777, and in municipalities from 2,285 to 5,861. In 2002, Croatia had slightly more than 4,305 million inhabitants and 10,692 employees in cities, municipalities, and counties. In 2019, Croatia fell to 4,060 million inhabitants, and the number of uhljebs grew to 19,047.
Uhljeb, though a difficult word to translate, literally means ‘in bread’, and it refers to a person who has a job for life through connections – either political or family – and whose levels of competence and interest in doing the job well are questionable at best. You can learn more about uhljebs in A Tale of Two Croatias: Before and After the Uhljeb Discovery (here) and Welcome to Uhljebistan: A Foreign Appreciation of the Cult of Uhljeb (here).
Now that your mind is refreshed – you must know someone who left Croatia in the past few years, especially if you are from Slavonia. Or at least heard about someone who has left. But have you ever heard or know about a single uhljeb who left Croatia? Or did only those who were forced to feed the uhljebs move out?
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