One of the leading European newspapers, the British The Economist, published a worrying article stating that in 2050, Bosnia and Herzegovina will have only 2.7 million inhabitants. In an article entitled “The Balkans are getting short of people”, the paper warned that BiH would be one of the countries to face a sharp decline in population.
The text states that by 2050, the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be reduced by 37 percent. They reminded that according to the 1991 census, there were four million and 377,000 inhabitants in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which means that by 2050 that number will be lower by one million and 620,000 inhabitants, Vijesti.ba news portal reports.
That the population is declining is also shown by the census in our country from 2013, when there were three million and 531,159 inhabitants. The Economist writes that in the whole Balkans, the situation is only worse only in Bulgaria, which is estimated to fall by 39 percent, and in Moldova, where the decline should be 45 percent.
The Economist also states that young people are emigrating from the Balkan countries, while remaining mostly old. In such circumstances, the Balkan countries will not be able to make any progress, the text reads.
The problem of dual citizenship was also highlighted. The text states that a fifth of people who have a Croatian passport and work abroad come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a similar situation is with many Moldovan citizens who use the Romanian passport to make it easier to go and find a job in the European Union.
Apart from emigration, the reason for the decrease in the number of inhabitants is the fact that most families have one child, which was not the case before.
So, next year, there will probably be more pensioners than able-bodied people in Serbia. The text concludes that the emigration of the population suits the authorities in the Balkan countries, because in that way a false image is created about the reduction of unemployment in those countries, and those who go send money to their families in their home countries and thus directly fill their countries’ budgets.
