The demographic profile of rural areas in Romania

Abstract

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.

Living conditions in rural areas in Romania from 1990 to 2020

“…An important debate to this extent concerns the sustainability of public utilities expansion in rural communities that are facing demographic decline, especially those outside functional urban areas and/or with marginalised communities (Hărăguş and Foldes 2020). At least equally salient is the issue of rural household affordability of water and sanitation tariffs.…”

“…Only suburban communes, i.e. in so called functional urban areas, buck this trend (Hărăguş and Foldes 2020), a point to which we will return.…”

“…Looking at the big picture, the downward demographic trends were linked to Romania's traumatic transition to a market economy and mirrored trends in other Central and Eastern European countries (Stănescu 2015a). However, this population decline is uneven across the rural landscape (Mihalache 2015;Hărăguş and Foldes 2020). Moreover, the future trend is even more population decline because of persistent low fertility rates that do not seem to be on the path of recovery, plus further emigration.…”

Evoluții în demografia județului Sibiu, 1990-2021

“…Mai precis, vom analiza demografi a județului Sibiu în cele trei decenii post-1989. Prin aceasta, contribuim la o literatură în expansiune în ultimul deceniu (Rotariu, Dumănescu, & Hărăguș, 2017;Eva, Cehan, & Lazăr, 2021;Guțoiu, 2019;Földes, 2019;Hărăguș, & Földes, 2020) care a reușit să surprindă variațiile geografi ce din interiorul demografi ei naționale românești. S-a observat că, în ciuda declinului demografi c național, anumite zone urbane sau periurbane dezvoltate economic, au reușit să genereze chiar și creștere demografi că sau să atenueze considerabil scăderea demografi că.…”