Демографија (Dec 2019)
Ageing of Population as the Challenge of Sustainability of Slovak Settlements and Slovak Ethnic Groups in Vojvodina
Abstract
During the 17th century, the Slovak population began migrating from its motherland to the south and to the southeast of the Pannonian Plain. They settled in Vojvodina, and the settlements in which the Slovaks are still the most numerous are Kovačica and Bački Petrovac. The share of the Slovak ethnic group in Vojvodina grew until the mid-20th century, after which a noticeable decline was observed, especially in the last two censuses. The low fertility and migration of the young population reflected the change in the age structure, which in the long run is a key challenge for the sustainability of this ethnic group in Vojvodina, on which fact the goal and task of this paper are based. The focus of the paper is the ageing of the Slovak population, analyzed on the basis of age-sex structure, average age, ageing index, age ratio, age dependency ratio and age structure typology. The comparative analysis covered the period since the census in 1971 and it was established that the population of Bački Petrovac and Kovačica was shifting from the stage of the threshold of demographic ageing towards deep and deepest demographic ageing. These two settlements represent the anchors of the Slovaks in Vojvodina and the settlements of their largest concentration, so it is expected that the trends in other settlements, with a smaller share of the Slovak population, will only be even more unfavorable. The results are complemented by the demographic projections of this ethnic group at the level of Vojvodina, obtained in the DemProj Spectrum v5.47 software. According to the current trends and projections, the Slovak ethnic group has some of the most unfavorable age indicators, which could lead to a decline in the total number of this population by more than 30% by the middle of the 21st century, thus endangering its sustainability in this region.
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