Demographic problems in the Carpathian region of Serbia

Eastern Serbia, including the Carpathian region, is an area that has been characterized by unfavorable demographic trends for decades. Low reproductive norms in terms of the cultural pattern of ‘one child’, applied from the middle of the 20th century and caused by economic reasons to preserve the estates and the mixed ethnic structure of the population, had the result that this area has had the lowest population growth in the country. The fact that the Carpathian Serbia has traditionally been emigration area is additionally contributed by the negative demographic processes such as depopulation, continuous increase in the average age of the population, more and more unfavorable ratio of young and old populations, reduction in the average population density and concentration of population in urban areas. For purposes of this study, values for the demographic indicators of the population of the Carpathian Serbia are calculated separately at the level of settlements, and in terms of its physical and geographic boundaries.