This paper aims to provide descriptive results about demographic trends (natality, mortality, and migration) and their effect on age structure in Romania in the past 30 years. We focus on analysing rural areas, since, while having a negative natural growth and negative net external migration values, internal migration has further affected rural areas by increasing the rate of population decline in many localities. Apart from describing rural areas at a general level, we also differentiate various rural localities according to two criteria, namely inclusion in functional urban areas of every county seat and the existence of marginalised communities within localities’ administrative territory. This differentiation allowed us to portray population characteristics within the broader context of uneven economic development across Romania. Various well-developed cities, known as magnet cities, contribute not only to an increase of population volumes in the surrounding rural settlements but also to other demographic discrepancies between the growth poles and the peripheries. Keywords: rural areas; demographic change; functional urban areas; marginalized communities.

Abstract. Recent demographic changes such as ageing, low-fertility, and large out-migration from Eastern European countries, brought into discussion the vivid question of the future of intergenerational solidarity within families. In the context of increasing geographical mobility of young people in search for better paid jobs, the unmet need for personal assistance among the elderly, the underdeveloped system of care services, Romania knows new dynamics of intergenerational support. Contrary to perspectives that consider spatial proximity between adult children and their elder parents the indisputable enabling factor for intergenerational support transfers (Rossi and Rossi, 1990), emerging literature on transnational families highlights that such tight kinship relations continue to exist even across borders (Baldassar et al., 2007). Using recent data from the nationwide survey "The Impact of Migration on Older Parents Left Behind in Romania" (2011), this paper examines the complex dynamics of intergenerational solidarity involving adult children as transnational migrants and their elder parents who remain at home. The statistical models used indicate the migrants' role as providers of remittances, but also the ways in which other forms of support are distributed among the dyads. Despite a possible presupposition that parents who were left at home might only be beneficiaries of support, the data show the opposite: elderly persons, depending on their age, were active providers of help as well.

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