Demographic Changes in the Countries of the Western Balkans – A Comparative Analysis with the European Union

Abstract

The study analyses the demographic changes in five countries of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia – which are associated with and are potential candidates for European Union (EU) member states. Due to a lack of data, Kosovo was excluded. The research was based on selected measures, both static and dynamic. The analysis was conducted against the background of the indicators presented for the EU, with the longest time sample covering the years 1960–2020. The study presents the scope of demographic changes and the advancement of the population ageing of these countries using selected static measures and showing their dynamics. The methods used are based on data analysis and cluster analysis. The results point to the advancement of demographic changes and ageing in the region. The comparison of calculated measures indicates that the demographic structure in the region has shifted towards “old”, with the share of people aged 65 and over higher than 14% in 2020. The most advanced stages concern Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the transformation from a “young” demographic structure to an “old” was very dynamic and deep.

European Union and its progress towards affordable and clean energy in context of the Agenda 2030

“…Cluster analysis makes it possible to create homogenous groups of objects in such a manner that the objects are similar to one another within a specific cluster, but they are dissimilar to objects in different clusters. In other words, it is expected that the level of association between two objects is maximal if they reside in the same group and is minimal otherwise [39][40][41]. To compute the distance for different data types, different measures are used and various non-hierarchical or hierarchical methods are applied for identification of which clusters should be joined at each stage.…”