Changes in the Ethnic and Demographic Profile of the Population in Eastern Stara Planina Region - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 228

Table 19.1 Natural reproduction of the three major ethnic groups in Bulgaria for the period
1946-2000 (%)

Crude birth rate Crude death rate Natural increase

Ethnic group 1965 1975 2000 1965 1975 2000 1965 1975 2000

Bulgarian 13.6 15.6 6.9 8.3 9.8 15 5.3 5.8 -8.1

Turkish 29.3 29.6 13 7.2 8.1 10.5 22.1 21.5 2.7

Roma 24.2 33.3 26.7 5.2 8.2 7.5 19 25.1 19.4

Source: The calculations for 1946, 1956, 1965, 1975 are based on Central State Archive data, and
for 2000 - by Tomova ( 2005 )

in which the Muslims in Bulgaria were forced to adopt Christian names instead of
their Turkic-Arabic names), while the 2001 census showed the beginning of the
demographic crisis and all the changes that occurred during the early years of the
transitional period in Bulgaria (Table 19.1 ,Figs. 19.1 and 19.2 ).
The differences in the reproduction process of the three ethnic groups are quite
distinctive during the whole period. The decline of Roma birth rate in the recent
years is due to socio-economic and cultural changes, such as increase of the educa-
tional level, decrease in the infant mortality, etc. Despite those factors, the decline of
Roma birth rates is slow—at the end of the discussed period it is nearly four times
higher than the Bulgarian birth rate, and two times higher than that of Turks. As
a result of healthcare improvement, Roma mortality rate declined, which process
neutralized to some extent the decline of birth rates and thus the natural increase
remained unchanged. Just the opposite, Bulgarian death rates began to grow during
the mid-1970s, as a result of aging. The Turks and especially the Roma have much
better overall demographic situation of the Bulgarians, due to different start of the
demographic transition of the three groups as a result of their cultural differences.
Another factor is the lower “rural to urban” migration rate of the Turks and Roma
in the past periods. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the natural increase of the Turks and

Fig. 19.1 Changes in ethnic structure of the population in Eastern Stara planina region