Demografske promjene u Hrvatskoj - od ekspanzije do depopulacije
Demographic changes in Croatia – from expansion to depopulation

Summary/Abstract: According to a series of formal quantitative indicators, Croatia finds itself in a deep demographic crisis. This is the consequence of the long-term effect of various demographic and non-demographic destabilising factors of demographic development (world wars, the Homeland War, emigration, diseases, economic crises, declining birth rates – "the white plague", ageing, etc.), but also the long-term lack of a clear, long-lasting and complete demographic revitalisation strategy, which through mutual permeation in the past decades have "produced" a strong demographic drain. This was largely confirmed by the final results of the 2021 population census, as well as the current data of vital and migration statistics, and consequently both the size, indication and structure of the demographic balance in the period of 2011-2023. From the first modern general census in 1857 to the census in 1991, Croatia was in an almost continuous period of demographic expansion (in that period the number of the total population more than doubled – from 2,181,499 to 4,784,265) after the last census before the Homeland War (1991), Croatia entered a prevailing and continuous period of depopulation, due primarily to the natural decline of the population and the negative balance of external migration, which meant more deaths than births and more noticeable emigration than immigration, as well as demographic ageing and the increasingly old age of the population. With regard to the determined number of the total population in 2021 (3,871,833), Croatia "went back" about seventy years (in 1948, Croatia had 3,779,858, while in 1953, 3,936,022 permanent residents), which undoubtedly testifies to large natural demographic losses and mechanical means, both at the national and regional and local levels, but it also warns of the indispensable need for coordinated, systematic, comprehensive and long-term implementation of demographic revitalisation measures and activities as a crucial component of the sustainable development, overall sustainability and resilience of Croatia.The purpose of this paper, therefore, on the basis of the results of modern general population censuses, including the final results of the 2021 Census, is to present and analyse the numerical movement of the population of Croatia, with the aim of determining and interpreting the temporal and spatial (administrative) context of demographic dynamics and demographic and non￾demographic factors of the movement of its total population. In this sense, special research attention is focused on two quantitative dimensions of demographic sustainability: the natural movement of the population and the mechanical movement of the population (migration). The analytical context of the research is determined by data from the census, vital and migration statistics collected, processed and published (online) by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics

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