Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
integration into EU in the near future, which could transform Serbia's net migration
balance from a negative one to positive one under certain conditions, and intensify-
ing emigration character of migration due to an unfavorable political and economic
situation. It was assumed that the direction and intensity of internal migration is
perfectly correlated to the predicted character of international migration.
The probabilistic forecast shows that Serbia will face significant population aging
with no chances to revert the process during the projection. With respect to decreas-
ing trend of population size, fertility increase is one of two indispensable conditions
if Serbia wants to restore its current size. The other is huge immigration that could
be accomplished if the country experiences fundamental political and economic
changes in the forthcoming period. Even then, there is only 9% probability that
Serbia's population size in 2050 will be higher than it is today.
In that context, population projection for the Mountains shows that current demo-
graphic situation could be improved if positive trends in migration occur in the next
period. In addition, mountain regions will be probably somewhat younger than low
lands due to accumulation of migrant population in the Plains during the last sev-
eral decades. That stock will enter the old-age group during the projection horizon
(Table
14.4
).
The median, or the most probable forecast, shows a decrease of total population
in the Mountains by almost one fourth in 2050 compared to the 2002 Census. But
if the aims of the government pronatalist strategy failed and emigration intensified,
population size of the area could be even reduced by one third according to the
lower limit of the 80% forecast interval. On the other hand, not even positive winds,
especially immigration into the Area in synergy with fertility improvement, could
stop decrease of population size of the Mountains in the long run. Indeed, those
improvements are of limited capacity given the actual age structure of the population
and growing spatial dispersion of the most vital age group.
Anyway, forecasted dependency ratios show that population aging will most
probably be stronger in the Plains than in the Mountains, which is expected given the
accumulated stock of working-age population from actual and earlier periods. But,
it is not so encouraging for the future of the Mountains because its demographic
Table 14.4
Population projection results for 2050—median and 80% forecast limits
Total
OADR
AI
0-19
65+
80+
MOUNTAINS
(1,565,080)
(0.284)
(0.695)
(23.92)
(16.63)
(1.96)
Upper limit
1,369,850
0.458
1.898
19.66
26.67
8.05
Median
1,200,869
0.394
1.426
16.51
23.58
6.44
Lower limit
1,044,433
0.340
1.081
13.71
20.70
5.04
PLAINS
(5,932,921)
(0.271)
(0.755)
(21.88)
(16.52)
(1.93)
Upper limit
5,561,897
0.580
2.275
19.42
31.28
9.74
Median
4,871,665
0.496
1.708
16.24
27.73
7.86
Lower limit
4,225,684
0.427
1.305
13.38
24.57
6.22
Source: Author's calculation; Notes: OADR—Old age dependency ratio (65+/20-64), AI—Aging
index (65+/0-19); Values in parenthesis—the 2002 Census
Search WWH ::
Custom Search