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shown at Fig.
14.1
, already indicated potential positive correlation between female
surplus of the age group and higher consumption level across the small territorial
units. Since the 2007 LSMS results are representative at NUTS 2 level, statisti-
cally based inferences about the correlation could have been estimated across the
six large regions only. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient is 0.72,
which confirms hypothesis about sex ratio of the most vital age group as a fine-
tuned indicator of the living standard of an area. This relatively strong correlation
points, above all, to socially very established way of personal dealing with inher-
ited problems of highly uneven development across the regions in Serbia, which
can be generalized by intrinsic opposition between the Plains and the Mountains.
Consequently, the aims presented in government strategies on pronatalism, poverty
reduction, and population aging imply counterbalancing of strong regional differ-
ences. If this prerequisite is absent, the well-established migration flow from high
(poor) to low (higher standard) lands will further deteriorate sex structure of the
most vital population group across the regions of the country. This analysis recog-
nized some of the not-so-obvious demographic limits to sustainable development
of mountain regions pointing to already significant amount of “frozen” reproduc-
tive potential which is of no effective use on account of its spatial dispersion.
Resulting opposition between backward agrarian zones of young men surplus and
urban “islands” of young women surplus will reinforce processes of demographic
aging and poverty throughout the country despite the goals of policy-makers. This
could be easily illustrated by the population projection.
14.3 The Future
Probabilistic population projection specially prepared for the purpose of the chapter
presents some of possible ways to exceed current demographic limits to sus-
tainable development of Serbia and its mountain regions particularly. General
hypothesis on demographic components coincide with assumptions used for mak-
ing population projection included in government Strategy on spatial development
of Serbia up to 2020. In addition, projection horizon has been extended up to
2050 in this chapter in order that long-term implications of current demographic
trends could be considered. Precisely, the projection does not assume any dramatic
improvement of fertility, similarly to the hypotheses in the recent probabilistic pro-
jections of European countries (Lutz and Scherbov,
1998
; Alho,
2002
; Statistics
Netherlands,
2005
), but takes into account both polar cases—implementation of
officially proclaimed pronatalist aims and decreases of total fertility rate to the
lowest level recorded in Europe. It was generally assumed slow increase of life
expectancy where target values are close to current levels of countries with longest
life span. Migration as a component of population change has generally the low-
est predictability (Matysiak and Nowok,
2006
), especially in countries like Serbia
(Nikitovic,
2010
). On the other hand, its importance could be immense in tradi-
tional low-fertility countries where fertility impact on improving age structure is
limited (Nikitovic and Lukic,
2010
). This projection took into account both possible
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