The population of Croatia looks set to decline longterm, according to the UN.
According to the United Nations, Croatia is among 11 countries of the world which could lose more than 15 percent of the population by 2050, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on August 27, 2015.
The demographic forecast of the UN published in the report “World Population Prospect” shows that Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine are at the greatest risk of depopulation.
The UN says that Croatia currently has 4.24 million inhabitants, of which nearly 2.2 million are women. It is anticipated that in 2030 Croatia’s population could fall to 3.97 million, then to 3.55 million in 2050 and to only 2.61 million in 2100. This would mean that by 2050 Croatia would lose 686,000 inhabitants or 16.2 percent.
The worst forecast is for Bulgaria, which during the same period could lose 27.9 percent of its population, and for Romania and Ukraine, which could also lose more than a fifth of the population. BiH could lose 19.5 percent of the population and Serbia 17.2 percent.
It is anticipated that the population will get older as well. UN forecasts that in 2050 Croatia will have 46.9 percent of inhabitants older than 60 years. Now, their share stands at 30.7 percent. The average age in Croatia is 42.8 years, while in 2050 it will be 49.6 years. Life expectancy is 77 years, and in 2050 it will be 83 years.
Although the UN estimates show that the population of 48 countries will decline, the total world population is growing by 1.18 percent annually, which means that every year there are 83 million inhabitants more. The UN predicts that by 2030 the global population will stand at 8.5 billion people, in 2050 at 9.7 billion, and at the end of the century, in 2100, the Earth will be populated by 11.2 billion inhabitants.
