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ACTS Post opinions with a wide range of perspectives to encourage constructive discussion.
In 30 years, the number of Roma in Bulgaria will exceed one million. Early mortality and low education will continue to be a problem, according to a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
There is more than twice the discrepancy between the number of the Roma minority recorded in Bulgarian statistics and the experts’ estimates of their actual size. According to experts in the field, Roma currently represent around 12 percent of the country’s population, while the latest census data shows a 4.7 percent participation. The reason for the discrepancy is that a large proportion of Roma continue to register as Bulgarians or Turks. This follows from a study on the demographic and social challenges facing the difficult integration of Roma into Bulgarian society, presented today by the Sofia office of the Friedrich Ebert German Political Foundation.
Gypsies will continue to give birth more and live less
The results of the demographic forecast made in the study show that in 30 years the number of Roma in Bulgaria is expected to reach between 1 and 1.2 million people. Experts assume that, despite the significant decrease in the last decade, the number of births among Roma women of childbearing age will remain at least twice the national number. The proportion of Roma children among minorities will remain comparable for three decades in several African countries.
The large number of preterm births, low life expectancy and the relatively high percentage of women of childbearing age support the expectation that the proportion of children under 15 years of age and after three decades will be approximately one third of the Roma ethnic group. The lower life expectancy among Roma compared to Bulgarians and Turks will remain remarkable. Currently, due to poor living conditions, lack of health and prevention insurance, Roma are living an average of about 10 years less.
Half of the Romani population in Bulgaria is illiterate
Bulgaria’s economy and labor market are severely affected by the ongoing depopulation of the country and regions, as well as some of the highest rates of population aging in the world. This was stated by Associate Professor Nadezhda Ilieva from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, co-author of the new study on the demographic and socio-economic perspectives of Roma integration. Apart from the decline in the proportion of working-age Bulgarians and the consequent contraction in the labor supply, the educational and professional qualities of the younger generations among the Roma ethnic group are extremely severe and appear to account for more than a quarter of Bulgarian youth as a whole. It is they who will increasingly replace retired workers and professionals.
The proportion of Roma at an early age will remain almost constant, and experts are seriously concerned about low educational attainment and early school leaving. The data shows that university graduates are only half a percent of Roma, and people with secondary and primary education are 10% and 40%, respectively. It follows that almost half of the Roma in Bulgaria are illiterate. This circumstance excludes the minority from the enlightened part of the labor market, with the exception of activities carried out by people without professional qualifications.
According to Adjunct Professor Ilieva, even in the case of the most optimistic scenario for integration, in 2050 at least 11% of adult inhabitants of the ghettos will remain completely illiterate in the context of the increasing proportion of people with university degrees at the 10%. If integration processes continue over the next three decades at the current extremely unsatisfactory rate, the proportion of illiterate Roma is expected to be even higher, up to 18%, and graduates from the ghettos to only 2%, the authors of the study believe. study.
Roma seek a way out abroad
Adjunct Professor Ilieva shares that, for the moment, the access of Bulgarian Roma to European Union labor markets plays the role of cushioning the tension caused by increasing inequality of Roma in the Bulgarian labor market. Surveys Ilieva conducted in some of the Roma neighborhoods of Plovdiv, Sliven, Blagoevgrad and Sandanski show that around 40% of the funds of those who live in them come from remittances from workers mainly in Germany and Great Britain.
Two-thirds of the 3,000 residents of the Sandanski Roma neighborhood live primarily in Britain, while the Turkish-speaking Roma in the Plovdiv ghettos earn their living from companies owned by German nationals of Turkish origin. Although working in the European Union guarantees a dignified existence, the education of children and the construction of professional habits, emigration deepens the deficit in the labor supply, which is already the main factor that repels investors from the Bulgarian economy, he said. Associate Professor Ilieva.
“Roma Cambridge” and other successful examples
He cites a number of examples and initiatives on the ground, showing that with skillful use of the experience gained in countries such as Spain, Hungary and Iceland in engaging marginalized communities, results are not long in coming. In the Straldzha municipality, located near Yambol, the ratio of Roma to Bulgarians is already 50:50. One of the serious problems associated with this coexistence is the theft of agricultural products from the countryside. The local government controlled inter-ethnic tensions by organizing municipal agricultural guards with the participation of the Roma. The children of Bulgarians and Roma in the municipality study together in non-segregated schools, which also proves to be a factor in reducing tensions.
Several years of efforts to desegregate school education in Kyustendil are also yielding encouraging results. The population of the large village of Dolni Tsibar on the Danube is fully Roma, but it is better known as “Roma Cambridge”: almost all the children in the village graduate from high school and one in ten young people has a university degree. . There are similar examples in Kuklen Municipality in Plovdiv and in Kavarna Municipality, and the key to success is in desegregating education by abolishing all Roma schools and kindergartens.
Bulgaria
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