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Yugoslavia SOCIAL GROUPS
YU020301.
Lake Bled, Slovenia
Courtesy Sam and Sarah Stulberg
YU020302.
Harbor at Dubrovnik
Courtesy Sam and Sarah Stulberg
YU020303.
Albanian man and boy in oda, traditional family room,
Kosovo
Courtesy Chuck Sudetic
Although Yugoslavia's ethnic landscape remained relatively
stable during the twentieth century, its socio-economic structure
underwent especially profound changes after World War II. On the
eve of that war, Yugoslavia was a predominantly agricultural land
with slowly developing basic industries. Society's broad base was
the peasantry, which made up over 80 percent of the population.
The country had a minuscule working class; government bureaucrats
and a few entrepreneurs, professionals, merchants, and artisans
made up the elite. After World War II, Yugoslavia's communist
rulers ordered rapid industrialization, and peasants left their
farms in droves to fill industrial and office jobs in the cities.
The communists brushed aside the prewar elite, nationalized about
80 percent of their property, and established a new class of
government bureaucrats. For several decades, party membership and
education were the keys to upward mobility in Yugoslav society.
But the economic downturn of the 1970s and 1980s brought nagging
unemployment and stifling bureaucracy that seriously impeded
entry into the working and managing classes, even for educated
and skilled individuals. Yugoslavia's immense postwar social
transformation brought profound changes to the family structure,
the lives of women, young people, and the elderly.
Data as of December 1990
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