NOTES ON THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN POSTCOMMUNIST ROMANIA

Abstract

The article presents a few of the demographic transformations in Romania in the period after the fall of the communist regime in 1989, when the new social circumstances, along with legal changes, had an undeniable effect on the manifestation of the demographic phenomena and thus on the volume and the structure of the population. The present article summarizes and also describes the transformations, with a few attempts at explaining them, without, however, aligning to any major theory that attempts to explain what has happened and to predict what will come next. In order to avoid entrapment within an enclosed discursive universe, there will be references to the situation of other countries, mainly in the geographical area of Romania and, more widely, in the European Union. The demographic phenomena that are analysed individually are fertility and mortality, which have a direct impact on the natural growth of the population. There are only a few suggestions on transnational migration in the section devoted to the changes of the population. Last, but not least, the text is a critical analysis of some of the official demographic statistics put forward by the National Institute of Statistics and even by EUROSTAT – data that is questionable or outright false and risks misleading the reader that is less familiar with the demographic situation of Romania.