Transforming Anxieties of Ageing
in Southeastern Europe
Political, Social, and Cultural Narratives of Demographic Change
Shrinking and Ageing Populations
Far more than other regions, Southeastern Europe is affected by demographic change: within less than a century, its population has turned from Europe’s fastest-growing into a rapidly “greying” one (Jakovljevic/Laaser 2010; Hoff 2011). A World Bank publication (Chawla et al. 2007) alluded to ageing as the “third transition”, after the transition to democracy and free-market economy. Population projections present a bleak picture: Bulgaria, for instance, once a country of 9 million people, today counts 6.8 million inhabitants and is predicted to shrink to less than 6 million until 2050. When the results of the latest population census were published, the public was alarmed by another sharp decline in the population. Bulgarian media wrote of a “demographic catastrophe”; in no other country in the world is the proportion of young people in the population so low.
Similar statements could be found in other countries, too. In Croatia, the public reacted with concern when the 2021 census showed a drop of almost ten per cent compared to 2011. Croatia would soon be left entirely to old people, read one headline.