Demographic summary of Serbia in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In Serbia, from a demographic point of view, 2020 certainly stands out as one of the most significant years of the twenty-first century and, with respect to mortality, of the period after the end of the Second World War. This is mainly linked to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has spread across the planet at an unprecedented rate. The aim of this paper is to present the analysis of Serbia's basic demographic data during the first year of the pandemic and to highlight the most important demographic consequences of the epidemic of the current coronavirus disease. As of 31 December 2020, according to the official SORS estimates, Serbia had 6,871,500 inhabitants, 55,000 fewer than in 2019. The decline is 74% higher than the 20-year average. As the estimates do not include net migration, the real population size is significantly smaller and, according to the author's opinion, it reaches a maximum of 6.7 million (as in 1961). The death toll was 116,850 and it is 15.2% higher than in 2019. This is the highest annual number of deaths, as well as the highest annual increase, since 1950. There have been 10,365 COVID-19 deaths (8.9% of total mortality and 67.2% of excess mortality). At the same time, a record was set in terms of the number of births, but in the opposite direction. In 2020, 61,692 babies were born, which is 4.2% less than in 2019 and was also the smallest number of births since 1900. The changes in the age structure are negligible compared to 2019, but very significant compared to the age-pyramids in 2002 and 2011. The share of people aged 65 years or over (21.3%) as well as the median age of 44.0 years indicate that, in 2020, Serbia belongs to the group of ten oldest populations in the world.