Romania’s population to drop significantly in the next decades

Eurostat issued a report showing that Romania, alongside other countries in Eastern Europe will face a demographic decline by 2050. The report projects that the population in this area will see an age increase of eight years, writes Cristian Gherasim.

In addition to Eurostat projected data, information provided by Romania’s Institute for Statistics shows how rapidly the population has aged over the past years.

What we will see in the next decades in Eastern Europe and some parts of Southern Europe is a gradual aging and depopulation of entire regions. Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic countries will also see its populations drop at a significant alarming rate over the coming period. Together with parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy, Eastern Europe goes well above the median age increase of 4 years projected for most of the regions in EU and EFTA.

But Romania takes the top prize in terms of depopulation. Again data shows that the South-eastern European nation has more regions than any other member state that will be subjected to population decline. 36 of its 42 counties have more seniors than youngsters.

Bu why is Romania’s population dropping?

A sociologist with the University of Timisoara in western Romania explained that In the case of Romania, this phenomenon is accentuated by the massive external migration: “We can say that Romania’s demographic problem is based, in addition to low birth rates and fertility, on a migration problem.”

Eastern Europe has ranked among the lowest in receiving immigrants but highest in terms of number of people living in other EU countries. Basically they take in very few people and lose many more through migration to other, usually bettered developed countries in Western Europe.

What specialists are expecting to see with an aging population is a change in the economy is taxes. An older population will not be able to sustain the required workforce. It would also mean that the governmental expenditure with pensions and health care cost would go up. So higher taxes on the active population, fewer taxes collected from the general population as pensions are usually tax exempted in Europe.

According to the World Health Organization the number of people aged 60 and older will reach 2.1 billion by 2050. And this is not just happening in Europe, but throughout the world.

What other Western European countries are doing to counter a population decline is to increase migration. Countries like Germany, Cyprus, Sweden would see a younger population by 2050 due to immigrants coming into the country. On the other hand Romania, traditionally less open to migrants are also dealing with a brain drain of youngster and qualified workers to Western Europe.

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