A 20-second video uploaded by the National Statistics Institute (INS) on Facebook shows how Romania’s population pyramid has evolved in the last 62 years. The video signals that Romania’s population is not only shrinking but is also ageing at a rapid pace. This could turn into a really big problem in the next 20 years.

The generation of Romanians born in the late 1960s and early 1970s, after the Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime banned contraception measures and abortion in Romania, which used to be at the bottom of the pyramid, is now above the middle and will get to the top in the next 20 years. Meanwhile, the new generations are getting thinner and thinner as fewer babies are born each year due to factors such as lower fertility rates and the high number of young Romanians living and working abroad.

The number of old Romanians (65 and over) has been growing steadily in recent years while the number of very young ones (0-14) has been declining. In 2009, the ratio of elder citizens to young ones went over 1 for the first time and it has been growing since, reaching 1.17 at the beginning of 2018, namely 117 people over 65 to 100 children under 14.

Romania’s population keeps shrinking in 2017 due to demographic decline and migration

editor@romania-insider.com