Gabor2022

Population Ageing. Romania in a European Context

Vicențiu-Robert Gabor, Ciprian Iftimoaei, Ionuţ-Cristian Baciu

Article information

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Emeritus Doctor Traian Rotariu, founder and director of the Centre for Population Studies at the “Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca, a researcher with outstanding contributions in the fields of population sociology, demography, social statistics and research methodology in the social sciences. The purpose of this comparative analysis is to show how the structure of Romania’s population evolved, in a European context, in the period 1990-2020 and to forecast the trends of demographic ageing. Starting from the sociologist and demographer T. Rotariu’s contribution to the research of the ageing population phenomenon, mentioning other contributions from the specialized literature, we define this phenomenon from a double perspective – demographic and sociological -, we present the statistical indicators used to describe the volume, structure and evolution of the population in the member countries of the European Union. With the help of the ArcGIS Pro cartography software, we created a series of maps to represent the evolution of statistical indicators from 1990-2020. We used the Jenks method to group the data at the spatial level. The age pyramid was used as a demographic tool to represent the evolution of the population structure of the EU-27 Member countries.

Keywords:

population ageing, ageing index, demographic dependency ratio

References

Bloom, D., Luca, D.L. (2016). “The Global Demography of Aging: Facts, Explanations, Future”. Discussion Paper Series, No.10163

Cristea, M., Noja, G.C., Stefea, P., Sala, A.L. (2020). “The impact of population ageing and public health support on EU labor markets”. International journal of environmental research and public health 17(4): 1439.

European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. (2021). The 2021 ageing report: underlying assumptions and projection methodologies. Publications Office.

Eurostat (2021). Eurostat Database, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ data/database, last accessed October 2022.

Iftimoaei, C. (2018). “Demographic Aging in France and Romania. A Comparative Statistical Analysis”. Scientific Annals of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. (New Series) Sociology and Social Work Section 11(2): 7-32.

Institutul Naţional de Statistică. (2017). Proiectarea populaţiei României în profil teritorial la orizontul anului 2060. Bucureşti: Editura Institutului Naţional de Statistică.

Jemna, D. (2017). Demografia Romȃniei [Demography of Romania]. Iaşi: Editura Universităţii Al.I.Cuza.

Jemna, D., David, M. (2018). “Determinants of ageing in Romania. Evidence from regional-level panel analysis”. CES Working Papers 13(1): 17-32.

Muntele I, Ungureanu A. (2017). Geografia populației (Editia a 2 a revizuită) [Population geography (2nd revised edition)]. Iaşi: Sedcom Libris.

Netedu, A.(2016). Demografie şi sociologia populaţiilor. Elemente teoretice şi practice [Demography and sociology of populations. Theoretical and practical elements]. Iaşi: Editura Universităţii Al I Cuza.

Rotariu, T..(2009). Demografie şi sociologia populaţiei [Demography and sociology of population]. Iaşi: Polirom.

Rotariu, T., Mezei, E. (2012). “Populația României. Volum, structuri și procese demografice”. In Traian Rotariu, Vergil Voineagu (Eds.) Interție și schimbare. Dimensiuni sociale ale tranziției în România [Inertia and change. Social dimensions of transition in Romania]. Iași: Polirom, pp. 17-44.

Rotariu, T., Dumanescu, L., Hărăguş, M. (2017). Demografia României în perioada postbelică (1948-2015) [Demography of Romania in the post-war period (1948-2015)]. Iași: Polirom.

Rotariu, T. (2010). Studii demografice [Demographic studies]. Iași: Polirom

Sanderson, W.C, Scherbov, S., Gerland, P.(2017). “Probabilistic population aging”. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0179171.

Sanderson, W.C, Scherbov, S., Gerland, P. (2005). “Average remaining lifetimes can increase as human populations age”. Nature l.435(7043): 811-813.

Sora, V., Hristache, I., Mihaescu, C. (1996). Demografie şi statistică socială [Demography and social statistics]. Bucureşti: Editura Economică.

World Bank. (2019). “Support to Aging Countries (Approach Paper)”. Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) approach paper. Washington, D.C., https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/sites/default/files/Data/reports/ap_agingcountries.pdf