One of the problems facing Bosnia and Herzegovina is the demographic picture. Negative natural growth and emigration of residents resulted in statistics – BiH loses 1.5% of its population per year. Entire families leave. There are many reasons, warns the profession, but there is only one goal. A safe and quality life over there somewhere.
Nermina Dedić, pediatrician and neonatology subspecialist, has been working in the maternity ward of the University Clinical Center Tuzla for 30 years.
Dr. Nermina also remembers the time when the rooms at the Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics were full of newborns, and children’s cries, like the most beautiful sound of life, echoed in these corridors.
“I have been in the maternity hospital since 1995 and we had a baby boom in 1997 when over 7,000 babies were born and that number of just over 6,000 was maintained for several years,” she recalls.
As the years passed, the number of newborns began to decrease, and our natural increase is increasingly negative, and in the first ten months of this year it amounts to – 723 babies. At the same time, only the number of people over 65 years old is increasing in Tuzla Canton.
“In 2013, there were 4,500 to 5,000 newborns, but for the last ten years, there have been around 130 fewer newborns every year,” adds doctor.
“According to the first results in the Tuzla Canton in the period from January to October 2023, the total number of live births is 2,553, which is 48 or 1.8% less compared to the same period of the previous year,” says Šemso Šurković, assistant director at the Federal Institute for statistics.
The most pronounced and biggest boycott of a country is the departure of young people. It is an indicator of how citizens feel about their country and whether they see a future and security in it. And those who stay, because of unresolved existential issues, do not dare to start a family.
“Young people are leaving, they are looking for a situation where they can give birth to children and create their families there. In the environment, in the society in the countries where they will be provided with social security and where they will have a normal job that they can live on”, emphasizes sociologist Smiljana Vovna.
Young people decide to start and expand their families in environments that provide them with security, where the narrative is not nationalized and where citizens are not counted by blood cells. Those who left will give birth to children in Europe, and we are left to welcome them during holidays and vacations, and count the days until they leave again for some more orderly countries, Federalna writes.
