The impact of emigration on population decline in Croatia

Abstract

In the last thirty years, the countries of south-eastern and eastern Europe have experienced significant population decline, and Croatia is no exception to that. This paper revisits the problem of depopulation in Croatia in the last two intercensal periods (2001?2011 and 2011?2021). The aim was to analyze the impact of emigration on depopulation in Croatia and investigate whether it had a greater impact on depopulation than natural decrease. Additionally, the aim was to investigate whether the number of emigrants was underreported in the official statistics. The results show that Croatia lost more population due to negative net migration than the official statistical data indicate. Recent migrations in Croatia did not only affect the population decline, but also age composition of the population, particularly in the last intercensal period due to emigration of families with children and population in their working and reproductive ages, as they composed a large proportion of emigrants. The paper provides an elaborate insight into the recent migration patterns in Croatia while highlighting the underestimation of the proportions of emigration from Croatia by the official statistics.