The romanian population in the turn of the century: an approach to demographic behavior in Romania during the great transformations of the transition from the 20th to 21th century

Abstract

This article describes, analyses and discusses some of the main demographic indicators of Romania during the last two decades, which we have entitled ‘Romania of the great transformations’, since the data analysed corresponds with a historical period characterised by a profound social, political and economic transformation following the fall of the Ceausescu socialist regime in 1989 and the rapid introduction of the Romanian society and State into the capitalist market and neoliberal logics, fostered eventually by its incorporation into the European Union in 2007. The analyses presented comprise statistical data from official Romanian institutions as well as excerpts from emi-structured interviews to specialised Romanian informants, and fieldwork notes taken by the authors in some of the main cities of the country. The data reveals an important decrease of the Romanian population in addition to a marked ageing, the feminization of the elderly and the masculinization of the young conditioned to a great extent by the excessive emigration during the last decade (which has not been rigorously estimated in the official statistics until recently), the fall of birth-rates, the rise of life expectancy, and the second transition of its family demographic structures.