|
Romania POPULATION
Demographic History
Romania's Carpathian-dominated relief, geographic
position at
the crossroads of major continental migration routes, and
the
turbulent history associated with that position adversely
affected
population development. The region had 8.9 million
inhabitants in
1869, 11.1 million in 1900, 14.3 million in 1930, 15.8
million in
1948, and 23.2 million in 1989.
Annual birthrates remained as high as 40 per 1,000 well
into
the 1920s, whereas mortality rates, although declining,
were still
well above 20 per 1,000. Children under five accounted for
half of
all deaths. During the interwar years, death rates
remained high,
primarily because of infant mortality rates of 18-20
percent. In
fact, throughout the 1930s, Romania had the highest birth,
death,
and infant mortality rates in Europe. The annual natural
population
increase fell from 14.8 per 1,000 in 1930 to 10.1 per
1,000 in
1939. These figures conceal considerable regional
variation.
Birthrates in the Old Kingdom regions of Walachia and
Moldavia were
much higher than in the former Hungarian territories,
which had
already begun to decline in the nineteenth century.
Demographic development in the immediate postwar period
continued to show a drop in the annual growth rates.
Population
losses occurred through excessive mortality, reduced
natality, and
migration, not only because of World War II but also
because of
subsequent Soviet occupation. Extensive pillage by the Red
Army and
exorbitant demands for restitution by the Soviets squeezed
the
peasants, resulting in harvest failures in 1945 and 1946
and severe
famine in 1947. In that year, 349,300 deaths were
reported,
compared with 248,200 the following year. A birthrate of
23.4 per
1,000 and a death rate of 22 per 1,000 resulted in a very
low
natural increase of 1.4 per 1,000, the lowest ever
recorded in
Romania's tumultuous history. In the 1950s, recovery from
the war
brought the birthrate up to 25.6 per 1,000 and the death
rate down
sharply to 9.9 per 1,000. In 1955 the annual natural rate
of
increase was 15.9 per 1,000. Again, there were significant
regional
variations, with Moldavia, Dobruja, and parts of
Transylvania
showing a higher increase, whereas the Crisana and Banat
regions
showed very little growth and in some cases even declined.
From a peak of 15.9 per 1,000 in 1955, the rate of
natural
increase declined rapidly to 6.1 per 1,000 in 1966.
Several factors
combined to produce this slump, not least of all a law
introduced
in 1957 that provided abortion on demand. Access to free
abortion,
coupled with the scarcity of contraceptives and the fact
that
society did not generally condemn it, made abortion the
primary
means of fertility control. After the 1957 law was
enacted,
abortions soon outnumbered live births by a wide margin,
with the
ratio of abortions to live births reaching four to one by
1965. It
was not unusual for a woman to terminate as many as twenty
or more
pregnancies by abortion.
It was not the easy access to abortion, however, but
the
reasons behind the decision not to bear children that
contributed
most to falling birthrates. During this period, a virtual
transformation of society was under way. Education levels
rose
dramatically, and urbanization and industrialization
proceeded at
a breakneck pace. As they had in other countries, these
developments brought lower fertility rates. Women were
staying in
school longer and putting off having children. Urban
areas, where
the decline in birthrates was most pronounced, provided
cramped and
overcrowded housing conditions that were not conducive to
the large
families of the past. Moreover, communist ideology
emphasized the
equal participation of women in socialist production as
the only
road to full equality. Industrialization brought more and
more
women into the work force, not only for ideological
reasons, but
also to ease rising labor shortages. Fewer and fewer women
made the
decision to take on the double burden of a full work week
and
raising children.
Data as of July 1989
|
