Suchergebnisse

Nema.

AbstractSerbia still hosts the largest number of forced migrants in Europe. The paper examines the impact of the refugee influx from newly formed states on the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) into Serbia on the future demographic trends of the country. Examination of the past population projections of Serbia confirmed that the process of predicting migration flows is related to the greatest source of uncertainty compared to all other components of demographic change. The results of our projection of Serbia's population through 2050 show that the large influx of refugees during the last decade of the 20th century should not have a significant impact on the future demographic change of Serbia. Even in the case of substantial improvement of total fertility rate (2.35 in final projection year, comparing to current 1.55), no positive demographic effect should be experienced.Continuation of the decline in Serbia's total population size cannot be offset by recent refugee influx for several reasons. The most important of them are: too small number of migrants comparing to the total population size of Serbia; similarity in fertility behaviour between refugee and indigenous population; the large‐scaled emigration during the same period; much older refugee population compared to emigrant population; and the processes of refugee repatriation and resettlement. A purely hypothetical projection variant assuming the migration required to maintain the size of current total population size of Serbia until 2050 points out the need for almost three times the amount of average annual migration surplus caused by the refugee influx.

Like almost all the European countries, Serbia is experiencing population ageing as a result of low fertility and increasing life expectancy. At the same time, economic activity rates there are lower than in many other countries. Negative natural change and emigration mean that Serbia's overall population is declining. Will these processes continue into the future? How might fertility, mortality and economic activity develop and what impact will this have on population and labour force size and structures? What effect might Serbia's potential membership of the European Union have? What, in particular, are the potential migration scenarios and their possible consequences? Which policies might be the most effective in counter-balancing population ageing and the potential labour deficit? To answer these questions, demographic experts from the Central European Forum for Migration and Population Research, IOM Warsaw and the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade conducted an impact study in order to provide a better understanding of the consequences of demographic and migratory trends for Serbia in the medium term, which is to say, thirty years. This publication gives an account of both the research conducted within that study and its results. In Chapter 2, the research methods adopted are described and the basic indicators defined. Chapter 3 contains an overview of past demographic, migratory and economic activity trends and a description of the assumptions for the future adopted in the forecasts. The forecast results, including a discussion of the impact of migration, are presented in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 considers various policy developments, while the Annex discusses selected issues in respect of data.