The households of Serbia at the dawn of third millennium: Socio-demographical analysis

Abstract

Side by side with tumultuous social processes in the end of XXth century great demographical changes have been taking place in Serbia, such as: the decline of nuptiality and fertility, postponement of family formation into older ages of life course of individuals, the rise of: extramarital births as well as adolescent pregnancies and live births, the spread of one-parent households, particularly of lone mothers, and divorces. Besides that, the main feature of the demographic development of Serbia has been increased mobility of population, namely migrations of highly educated professionals to the West ("brain drain") and forced migration of refugees and internally displaced persons to Serbia, as a consequence of armed conflicts in its surroundings and at Kosovo and Metohija. All the above-mentioned demographical changes caused the precomposition of households, as profound associations of population, where its biological and socio-economical reproductions take place. The information of last census of population of Serbia in 2002 indicate that according to the features of family and households, Serbia has approached the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, that are forerunning in the process of post-socialistic transformation and European integrations. Common characteristics of all those countries are: decrease of universality and popularity of marriage delay of childbearing, continuation of earlier demographic tendencies: of low natality, depopulation and aging of population. All those processes have contributed to the transformation of prevailing forms of households, i.e. decline of nuclear family units and the rise of single person households households of aged persons, as well as single-parent ones. As to the Serbia the demographic differences between its separate parts: Vojvodina and central Serbia, have been fading for the first time in its history, owing to previous socio-demographic developments starting from the beginning of XXth century, as well as to the above actual ones, in the period between last two censuses.