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Natality and Fertility Changes in South-East European Countries at the End of the 20th Century

The basic and most important demographic process of population reproduction is natality. Its level and development largely determine the future number and structures of the population by gender and age, which, in their turn, constitute demographic conditions for the economic and social development of each country. This article contains a brief analysis of the natality and female fertility in the countries of South-Eastern Europe during the last two decades of the 20 century, which, except for Greece, experienced radical political, social and economic changes. The group of these countries includes Hungary, the present-day republics of former Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Unfortunately we were not able to find and compare data on Moldova as of the beginning of the 1980s. The group also encompasses Hungary, which is a Central European country, but, as a Danubian one, it stands closest to the Balkan Peninsula and can participate in comparisons along with all other South-East European countries. The interest in these countries has been on the increase recently, as each of them is at a different stage of its process of integration in Europe. In 2004 Greece, an old EU member-state, was joined by Hungary and Slovenia, which acceded to the Union as new members, while Bulgaria and Romania are still candidate countries. For the time being it seems that the rest of the countries, known as the "Western Balkan group", will have a different and yet indefinite future in the integration process. The interest in all the countries mentioned above is multi-faceted and includes a demographic aspect as well. It is both general, including other countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, and region specific, i.e. aimed at the South-East European (SEE) countries alone. In this respect, there have been a growing number of demographic studies and publications on them, also involving the author of this article (Hristov, 1999). During the last decade of the 20 century all of the SEE countries referred to above (except for Greece) underwent a transition to a market economy and a civil society. These changes have affected and still exercise powerful influence on the demographic processes, including fertility and natality. To put it in a nutshell, they have entailed huge youth unemployment, postponement of marriage and childbirth, as well as considerable net migration, which, in its turn, has had an adverse impact on fertility. Generally, the effects of the socio-economic changes in the last decade of the 20 century can be established by comparing the downtrends in natality and fertility with the respective trends of the previous decade (Hristov, Beleva, 2001 ). These changes also substantiate the objective of this article: to conduct a comparative analysis of natality and fertility in the individual SEE