Could Refugees Have a Significant Impact on the Future Demographic Change of Serbia?

Abstract

Serbia still hosts the largest number of forced migrants in Europe. The paper examines the impact of the refugee influx from newly formed states on the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) into Serbia on the future demographic trends of the country. Examination of the past population projections of Serbia confirmed that the process of predicting migration flows is related to the greatest source of uncertainty compared to all other components of demographic change. The results of our projection of Serbia's population through 2050 show that the large influx of refugees during the last decade of the 20th century should not have a significant impact on the future demographic change of Serbia. Even in the case of substantial improvement of total fertility rate (2.35 in final projection year, comparing to current 1.55), no positive demographic effect should be experienced.Continuation of the decline in Serbia's total population size cannot be offset by recent refugee influx for several reasons. The most important of them are: too small number of migrants comparing to the total population size of Serbia; similarity in fertility behaviour between refugee and indigenous population; the large-scaled emigration during the same period; much older refugee population compared to emigrant population; and the processes of refugee repatriation and resettlement. A purely hypothetical projection variant assuming the migration required to maintain the size of current total population size of Serbia until 2050 points out the need for almost three times the amount of average annual migration surplus caused by the refugee influx.

Population Growth in the Border Villages of Srem, Serbia

“…in all villages in which there was an increase of population and in the village of Sot (Table 7). The example of Sot confirms that settled population will not have the crucial importance for the development of the population in the future; this is confirmed by data received from research by Nikitovi} and Luki} (2010). The rate of migratory balance in border areas of Srem (15.1 ‰) is quite similar to the value in the entire municipality (14.1 ‰).…”

How to motivate policy makers to face demographic challenges?

“…During and after the wars in the Western Balkans in the 1990s, Serbia became one of the main destinations for refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, and for internally displaced persons from the southern province of Kosovo and Metohija. At the same time, a large scale emigration from the country took place [Nikitović and Lukić 2010]. Afterwards, in accordance with political stabilization of the region, forced migration ceased.…”

Spatial patterns of recent demographic trends in Serbia (1961–2010)

“…In spite of high intensity of forced migration during the 1990s (Nikitović, Lukić 2010), and traditionally voluminous labor outflows initiated by Yugoslav authorities since the mid 1960s (ISS 2013), migration component² was less important for the total population change of Serbia from its natural counterpart during the 1961-2010 period. Its importance can be only evident at subregional level, particularly in the most pronounced emigration area in the north and northeast of Central Serbia.…”