In the late 20th and early 21st century many countries and regions across the world are facing the issue of population ageing. Unlike the ageing process for an individual, population ageing refers to a change in the age structure of the whole population with an increasing proportion of the population in older age groups and a declining proportion in younger age groups. This book looks at the causes and results of population ageing in the former communist states of Eastern, South-Eastern and Central Europe, how these differ from the experiences of Northern and Western Europe, and the socio-political implications of these changes.
Following a brief introduction by Andreas Hoff, including an argument that the post-communist transition, as a period of socio-economic uncertainty leading to reduced fertility, was itself a causal factor in population ageing for the countries involved, the book divides into sections. First, on Eastern Europe, with chapters on Poland, Lithuania and Russia; then on Central-Eastern Europe with individual chapters on population ageing in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia; and on South-Eastern Europe, with chapters on Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. A final section on the societal and policy implications of population ageing for these countries, with individual chapters on physical and cognitive function and family relations, ends with a chapter on future sustainability, giving a detailed overview of population ageing in Eastern and Central Europe as a whole.
Overall, the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) transition to an ageing population has occurred later than in Western Europe. CEE has experienced an even bigger decline in fertility than the West in the years leading up to the millennium. This decline resulted from, in the West, deferred childbirth and in the East, possibly, the uncertainties of the post-communist era. Declining fertility has been a major driver of population ageing.
In the years following communism, life expectancy at birth in CEE, especially Russia, notoriously declined to the levels of the 1950s. Although currently improving, life expectancy at birth and at age 65 remains considerably lower in CEE than in Western Europe. This is often driven by the disparity in life expectancy between the sexes. Although, unusually, in Serbia, the difference between the sexes is less than in Western Europe (around five years), in most countries of CEE it is greater and, in Estonia, at the turn of the century, at birth a woman could expect to live 12 years longer than a man.
Although in the short term migration can have a profound effect on population growth and the age structure of populations, in the longer term the effect is often negligible. Migration flows in Europe have been irregular, although since the 1990s there has been a net flow of younger people seeking economic advancement, not only to the West but also to the more affluent countries of the East such as the Czech Republic and Hungary. Other countries such as Slovenia, Estonia and Romania have made the transition from net exporters of labour to net importers and in 2007 Russia was the second largest immigration country worldwide, taking in young workers from the former central Asian and former Soviet republics.
This book holds a wealth of interesting and often counter-intuitive data. Poland, for example, is often thought of as a country of net emigration and in the years following Polish accession to the European Union there was a marked upturn in Polish emigration. Since 1990, however, there have been increasing levels of migration into Poland so that by 2020 it is estimated that Poland will become a country of net immigration. In addition to the overarching demographic trends, countries such as Croatia which were part of the former Yugoslavia have been very much affected by excess deaths, migration and fertility patterns resulting from the ‘homeland war’ of the early 1990s which led to an actual and projected future decline in their population.
The social and economic implications of population ageing are very much influenced by the proportion of older age that is spent in good health. In Britain healthy life expectancy (health expectancy) has not kept pace with life expectancy, but across Europe the relationship is erratic. CEE countries such as Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have both low life expectancy and low health expectancy. Denmark has high life expectancy and high health expectancy whereas Germany and Finland have high life expectancy but much lower health expectancy. In this volume, Bobak, Pikhart and Marmot report a particularly rapid cognitive decline with age in Russia.
Demographic transition in CEE has been accompanied by changing family patterns and a move away from traditional rural settings. In 1967, in the Socialist era in Poland, 67 per cent of older people (aged 65 and over) lived on farms whereas by 2000 in the period of transition this had fallen to just 19 per cent. The social and economic consequences of population ageing in Central and Eastern Europe may well be greater than in Western Europe because, as Hoff points out, ‘Western Europe grew affluent before it was growing old – Central and Eastern Europe is growing old before it has the chance to become affluent’ (p. 251).
This book will be of particular interest to demographers but, except for the chapter on population ageing in Bulgaria, is readily accessible to the general reader.
