Suchergebnisse

Three basic questions are under consideration in today?s demographic
community: a) the European geography of demographic behaviors allows us to
consider the geopolitical area of S.E. Europe as uniform and clearly
distinguished from the rest of Europe, b) to what extent the observed recent
evolutions in the ex "socialist" S.E. European countries are registered in
the long term or/and have been affected by the seismic policies and
socio-economic changes as well as the consequent difficulties the
inhabitants of these countries meet during the transition period and finally
c) the demographic perspectives of these countries and their direct and
indirect implications. In this article we do not aspire to give answers to
all of the above questions. Initially, we confined ourselves to a synthetic
presentation of post-war demographic evolutions (giving indirectly an answer
to the question of the existence or nonexistence of a demographic profile of
the Balkans). Then we focused our attention to the expected demographic
trends and the problems they raise on the one hand, to the labor market of
these countries on their course to free market, and on the other hand, to
the migration pressures these countries might bring upon the neighboring
E.C. countries.

Demographic ageing (continuous increase of the percentage of old people of a
population) depends on the evolutions of fertility, mortality and migration
as well as on the age structure of the population which reflects the changes
of the three above mentioned components in the remote past. In this article
we examine the consequences of each of the three demographic components on
demographic ageing in two European countries (France and Greece); two
countries significantly differentiated as far as their trajectory is
concerned during the last two centuries. From the viewpoint of methodology,
in order to evaluate these consequences we adopted the simulation method and
more specifically, each time we kept one of the three components stable for
the level it is characterized at the beginning of the study period and we
estimated the amount and the percentage of the over-sixty-year old persons
which we would have in this case in the early 1990's (amount and percentage
we compared to the corresponding ones estimated around 1993). At the same
time we tried to estimate the specific weight of the early structures of
population in the two countries on the basis of today's demographic ageing:
thus, we proceeded to identical simulations with different population
structures at the starting point (stable populations corresponding to the
tables on mortality for 1950 in France and I960 in Greece). The basic
conclusions of this study allow us to see the significant specific weight of
the mortality change on demographic ageing (ageing from above), parallel to
the already known role of fertility (ageing from the basis of the pyramid).
On the contrary, the role of migration currents appears limited and their
influence has the opposite direction in these two countries of study; slight
acceleration of ageing in Greece, slight slowing down in France. At the same
time, demographic ageing in the early l 990's in both countries is smoother
than that expected if their populations were stable. Finally, in France as
well as in Greece the acceleration of ageing is inevitable as significant
changes in fertility are absent. Mortality is expected to play a more and
more significant role in the mid and remote future to such an extent that
the prolongation of the expected life at birth will be more and more due to
gains of life for the over-sixty-year-old persons.

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. The demographic future of Western Balkans: between depopulation and immigration -- Chapter 3. Population ageing process and depopulation context in Western Balkans -- Chapter 4. Temporary migration and policy challenges in the Western Balkan countries - Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia perspectives -- Chapter 5. The evolution of family related behaviours in the Western Balkans and their impact on present and future family and population structures: an analysis concerning the period 1945-2050 -- Chapter 6. Mortality and health developments in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro -- Chapter 7. Serbia: Policy response to demographic challenges -- Chapter 8. Spatial distribution of human capital in Serbia: empirical analysis with special reference to education -- Chapter 9. Challenges in getting old in Croatia -- Chapter 10. Albanian return migration in times of economic hardship -- Chapter 11. A spatial approach of migration and poverty in Albania: an inevitable correlation? -- Chapter 12. Nationals and foreigners fertility in a crisis environment, the case of Greece (2009-2020) -- Chapter 13. Is a Future Upward Trend in Births a Realistic Policy Goal? -- Chapter 14. The impact of highly skilled returning emigrants on the origin country's innovation performance: Evidence from Greece -- Chapter 15. Culture versus political and ecclesiastic legislation. A study on how Eastern Orthodox Easter customs and individual agency affect people's health in Greece -- Chapter 16. Attitudes towards reproduction and creating a family among Albanian women – the case of Arachinovo municipality, North Macedonia.

During the last decade, the European Union has been facing one of the largest mass movements of migrant inflows in its history. It is expected that this situation will not change over the next years as a result not only of the development of armed conflicts, but also due to the demographic explosion and the extreme poverty in many African countries. Among the European countries (i.e EU members and EFTA countries), Greece, Italy and Spain, due to their geographical position and the length of their coastline, play a major role as main entry points into Europe.