Demographic Limits to Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions in Serbia - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 173

Chapter 14
Demographic Limits to Sustainable
Development of Mountain Regions
in Serbia

Vladimir Nikitovic

Abstract One of the effects of highly elemental urbanization in Serbia reflects itself
in the disturbed sex composition of most vital age groups at the settlement level
of the country. As a result, both agrarian zones of young men surplus and urban
“oases” of young women surplus jointly reinforce processes of demographic aging
and poverty in Serbia despite the goals of policy-makers presented through cru-
cial national strategies regarding sustainable development of the country. The rural
zones with young women deficit, which are predominantly border and mountain
regions, are the first to face negative effects of the prevailing demographic tendency
in the future. Some of the paper findings point to typical positive feedback loop
“population-poverty” as the intrinsic mechanism of persistent “high- to lowlands”
migration. Finally, population projection of mountain regions in Serbia indicates
both decrease of population size and strong population aging as an inevitable and
dominant demographic process in the next few decades. These tendencies could be
substantial obstacles to the efforts in achieving sustainable development of Serbia's
mountain regions.

Keywords Demographic limits · Sex ratio · Population aging · Serbia

14.1 Introduction

Mountain regions in Serbia are located in the southern part of the country, specifi-
cally in the east and the west border region. Demographic indicators were polarized
in that way for decades. Indeed, most of the population lives in the northern part, pre-
dominantly presented by plain (the lowest part of Pannonia, the region of Belgrade
City and river valleys of Central Serbia) while the mountain regions are almost
deserted, gathering the oldest population in the country. This is the main result of