Economic analyst Faruk Hadzic presented an interesting, yet devastating, infographic showing that fewer people live in Bosnia-Herzegovina today than in 1953.
“Statistics related to expatriation from Bosnia-Herzegovina are limited. However, based on the available and fragmented data, I want to present the current situation,” Hadzic wrote with pictures showing statistics. According to the 1953 census, there were 2,847,459 people living in BiH. In the same year, 110,373 babies were born in BiH and 41,199 died.
According to the 2013 census, there were 3,531,159 inhabitants in BiH, 31,103 babies were born year and 35,837 died.
Given that we still do not have information on when the next census will be, but the data released by the BiH Agency for Statistics in the Labor Force Survey 2018 shows that there are 2,701,000 inhabitants in BiH, Klix.ba news portaln notes.
In 2019, 28,555 babies were born and 36,305 died. “An important note regarding the total population – the Labor Force Survey is methodologically not the same as the census, but is the only available data for that year,” said Hadzic.
Assuming that so many Bosnians were living in BiH at that moment, our citizens went abroad, because the state does not keep official statistics on emigration. “If we were actually living at 2.7 million in 2018, then by population we fell to the number we had sometime in 1953. Unlike the current situation, over 110,000 babies were born annually,” he added.
The departure of young people, but older as well, from the Balkan countries to the economically highly developed countries of Western Europe has been one of the biggest problems facing all countries in the region in recent years.
Although precise official data from state institutions on this crucial social issue are still lacking, it has long since become clear that this is a worrying demographic trend, Radio Sarajevo reports.
According to unofficial data and estimates of domestic and international organizations, almost every country in the Balkans is annually left without a population of size of a smaller city.
According to the Union for Sustainable Return of BiH, there has been a steady increase in departures from BiH over the last six years.
Since 2013, more than 200,000 people have left Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is worrying that in 2019 alone, BiH has left most people so far, about 60,000, while in 2018 about 40,000 people left the country. These data show that in the past two years, approximately 50,000 persons emigrated from BiH abroad.
Serbia is facing a similar demographic problem, and according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has left around 654,000 people, most of them between 15 and 24, from the beginning of this century to the end of 2018. years.
Eurostat figures also show that 51,000 people left Serbia for better work in the EU in 2018.
