Serbia is becoming a country of the elderly – Economy

One in five inhabitants of Serbia is over 65 years old and one in seven is under 15, which places our country in the group of the oldest demographically in the world.

Photo: Beta / Milan Timotic

According to the official estimates of the Office of Statistics of the Republic, at the beginning of this year, Serbia had 6.9 million inhabitants, five years earlier 7.2, and two decades ago around 7.5 million, which Demographers estimate this as a stable and unfavorable demographic picture.

– The number of live births has been consistently below 65,000 for several years and is significantly lower than in any other year of the 20th century, even lower than during any war fought in that century. The death toll has consistently exceeded 100,000 for twenty years, and since 2010 it has ranged from 100,000 to 104,000 a year. It amounted to 101,400 last year, explained demographer Goran Penev for the Nezavisnost portal.

It points out that the population of Serbia has decreased by 36,500 people every year in the last decade, due to negative natural increase, and that it has been exposed to intensive aging for decades, both due to the increase in the proportion of elderly and the proportion of young boys.

By all criteria, Serbia in the 21st century belongs to the group of demographically oldest countries in Europe and the world, says Panev, adding that at the beginning of 2020, up to 21 percent of the population was over 65 years old and only 14.3 percent were younger than 15 years, while the median age reached a record value of 43.4 years.

One of the causes of such a structure is the departure of the population from Serbia, believes Panev.

– It is very difficult to obtain reliable data on the external migration of the Serbian population. The results of a recent SBS survey conducted in cooperation with the national statistical organizations of the major countries indicate that between 2011 and 2018, 226,000 people left Serbia and 131,000 people emigrated to Serbia at the same time. The migratory balance is less than 95,000 or 12,000 per year. Emigration has particularly intensified in recent years and, according to SBS, in 2018, 38,000 people left Serbia and 16,000 people immigrated (or returned). My guess is that the trend of increasing emigration continued in 2019, but also that in 2020 it stopped abruptly. It is to be expected that in the coming years, mainly as a result of the global economic crisis caused by the pandemic, emigration will slow down, with the simultaneous intensification of immigration and, above all, the return of Serbian citizens from abroad – says Panev.

Demographers are particularly concerned that such trends will affect the labor market in Serbia, which is evident “from the difficult satisfaction of labor needs, as well as structural changes in activities and occupations that are directly conditioned by current demographic trends. “.

Panev points out that according to the latest SSO estimates, on January 1, 2020, the workforce was 4.13 million inhabitants or 59.6 percent of the country’s total population.

Nine years earlier, there were 4,545 million or 62.7 percent of the total population in that category. The decrease in the volume of healthy foreigners was accompanied by a decrease both in the youngest, from 20 to 24 years old, and in the elderly, from 60 to 65 years old, with the fact that it was more intense among the young and slower than the average among the elderly.

Such differences have led to a change in the internal age structure of the work contingent, ie. reducing the proportion of young people from 9.9 to 8.9 percent and increasing the proportion of elderly from 11.3 to 11.9 percent, emphasizes Panev.

It is precisely because of the rapid aging of the working-age population that economists share the concern of demographers, but they say they have no idea how economic policy could oppose something that is the result of an objective process conditioned by the deep components of our demographic structure.

Ljubomir Madzar, an emeritus professor at Alpha University, says there is no room for any political or economic intervention.

– This process affects the entire economy, although some sectors employ a higher percentage of the older workforce, so it does not affect them in the same way as the segments where the younger population is expected. But a much bigger problem than this is the departure of young people from the country. They should be maintained if possible because they are the source of the best quality workforce, what is the future ahead, careers and that is very important for the economy – says Magyar and emphasizes that although it is difficult to find a cure, we need young people As soon as it is a matter of negative selection, the best and most educated are leaving and that can affect the economy of the country in the long run.

Greater than the greatest

– Data from several selected developed European countries (France, Sweden, Germany and Italy) confirm that the working-age population of Serbia is demographically very old. The first two belong to the population group demographically younger than Serbia and the other two to the population group demographically older than Serbia. However, in terms of the internal age structure of the contingent of workers, all four had a lower proportion of people aged 60 to 64 in the total working-age population (from 9.7 percent in Sweden to 11 percent in Germany). At the same time, with the exception of Italy, in all these countries, the proportion of the young population without disabilities is higher than in Serbia (from 9.2 percent in Germany to 10.3 percent in Sweden). In Serbia, the proportion of young people in the workforce is 8.9 percent and the elderly 11.9 percent, says demographer Goran Panev.

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