Instead of a Polity – Ample Ethnic Pockets Elsewhere
Instead of a Polity – Ample Ethnic Pockets Elsewhere

Summary/Abstract: The growth trend of the Bulgarian population, especially between the 19th and 20th centuries, persisted for a long time, until the 1960s. As early as the 1980s, demographists and sociologists (e.g., M. Minkov) warned of an impending demographic crisis. But the measures taken (child birth allowances, housing for young families with two or more children, strict restriction on abortion on request, and the introduction of the so-called “single’s tax”) did not lead to positive results. After the democratic changes that commenced in 1989-90, new factors of population decline were added to the old ones. Here we shall point out one of them – the growing emigration of people of working and childbearing age. Data analysis has shown that emigration accounts for 1/3 of the population decrease. Bulgarians working abroad already surpass in number those employed in the economy of Bulgaria by more than 300 thousand.Is it possible to repeat what we call the “Alcek model” in the 21st century? There are many examples of compact “pockets” of Bulgarian emigrant population in different parts of the world. There the emigrants have jobs, purchase property, give birth to children who later attend local schools. This implies they have little intention of returning to Bulgaria. Our forecast is that, with time, the prospects that these large groups of people, in their best age span, would return are declining. They will never contribute to overcome the impending economic and demographic crisis in the country of origin. By now, the only link of generations of Bulgarian grandchildren to their ancestral home is through Skype. The Bulgarian ethnos will not disappear, but will continue to exist in a modified form, as has happened to other nations since the time of the near-mythical Alcek.

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