Romania’s resident population declined by another 86,000 people last year, reaching 19.86 million people as of January 1, 2015, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INS). The resident population includes all Romanian citizens as well as other nationals who had their residence in Romania over the past 12 months.

This is a new low after the resident population dropped under the 20 million mark in January 2014, for the first time after World War II. In the past ten years (January 2005 to January 2015) Romania lost 1.52 million residents, as more than 1.1 million Romanians have left the country to work abroad after Romania joined the European Union while the rate of natural increase was negative (more people died than were born).

Romania had some 22.28 million people officially registered with the authorities, as of January 1, 2015, which means that some 2.42 million Romanians live abroad as emigrants.

Last year, Romania lost almost 70,000 residents due to natural causes (natural decrease) and 42,000 people due to migration (this represents the difference between the number of migrants from Romania and the number of immigrants the country received).

Besides the declining population, Romania also faces a population ageing phenomenon. The number of residents aged over 65 was 3.37 million, while the number of children under 14 was 3.07 million, as of January 1, 2015. Thus, there were almost 110 old people for 100 children.

The demographic dependency index also worsened. Each 100 active people (14 to 65 years old) had 48.1 children or elder people to support.

Romania’s urban resident population stood for 53.8% of the total.

Romania also had more women (51.1%) than men (48.9%), according to the statistics. However, this is due to the fact that the life expectancy for men is lower than for women in Romania. Considering the resident population under 50, the men to women ratio was 106 to 100.

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editor@romania-insider.com