The Population Problem of Macedonia


Nikola Popovski

One of the most important traditional features of the population on the European continent, which belongs to Macedonia, is that the continent’s population belongs to the white race and has been Christianized throughout history. These two characters today have not changed, but are under pressure and threats that in the future they can change and thereby change the continent’s population image. Namely, the peoples of Europe have serious problems with their natural growth and because of this, and in order to keep the level of worldwide economically enormously high economic activities, they are forced to attract population and especially labor from other parts of the world, mostly from the southern and eastern regions and continents. This population has different racial and religious characteristics from the traditional European, and besides the desired economic, it causes other less desired transformations on the continent. This, in turn, leads to wider political and social tensions on the continent that directly leads to a restructuring of the political scene in Europe which, in addition to Brexit, leads in the direction of strengthening the far right, nationalist and Christian political movements and parties. A problem that certainly will not disappear from the continent.
From this angle, our country in the present also faces similar, although not completely identical problems, which in the distant future can become very similar. Namely, today Macedonia is faced with a daily reduction in the population living and working on its territory. Officially, the country through its institutions still distributes data that the population is just over 2 million, although we all know and they know that these data are totally invalid and that de facto cannot serve anything serious. In fact, indirect certificates from the institutions for this we get daily – the number of voters living in the country vis-a-vis those on the voter list, the number of insured persons in the Health Insurance Fund versus the number of the population, the enrolled students in primary and secondary education versus the number of births children according to the birth certificate, the absolute number of unemployed persons in spite of the obvious high unemployment, and so on. The decrease in the number of the population in our country is due to two important factors: the seriously reduced rate of natural increase in the country and the continuous and quantitatively great departure of the population abroad, ie the emigration.
Let’s consider some important elements of both factors. First for natural growth. It is clear to everyone that it has been dramatically reduced and that the only question of time is when it will turn negative (the opposite from the previous one) from a positive (a larger number of born than deaths, that is, a higher birthrate than a mortality during one calendar year). For example, in 2018, the annual natural population growth, according to the vital statistics published by the State Statistics Office (SSO), on which we can rely on the fact that they are taken from the birth books of the deceased and the deceased to the relevant state institutions, is only 1.723 people. More specifically, in 2018 there are 21,666 live births and 19,943 deceased people in Macedonia. This trend has been in the same direction for many years and decades, and it is increasingly dynamic, so it is only a matter of time (probably in a few years) when we conclude that in Macedonia, as well as in the majority, if not in almost all European countries, the natural population growth is negative. For comparison, just 20 years ago, ie in 1998, 29,244 babies were born, and 16,870 died, bringing the natural increase to 12,374. The difference is huge.
This natural movement of the population with typical characteristics of its constant number reduction and relatively accelerated aging will create many problems with regard to some economic activities in the future: a possible serious imbalance between the desired level of additional production and the level of additional consumption; sectoral restructuring that will most affect agriculture, construction and industry; possibly reversed by the current imbalance in the labor market, in particular the needs of replacing the active population; restructuring of public and private activities and investments in the sectors of child protection and care, education, health care, pension insurance, change of temporary and permanent employment regimes for foreigners and many others.
An additional problem is that these vital changes also bring changes in the sociological characteristics of the population. Namely, today the natural growth in Macedonia is positive only in the municipalities and regions where the dominant or full population of the Muslim faith lives, and in those municipalities where the population of the Christian faith dominantly or completely lives, the natural growth has been negatively stable for some time.
The second factor of changes in the direction of reducing the absolute number of the population in the country, that is, the emigration, may be just as important. For him there are neither official nor other data, but some unofficial estimates are found. Maybe you should not speculate, but still that number every year is big. It is particularly important that the younger population moves out, which emigrates and, as it were, their future and still unborn children. Namely, the emigration of the female population in the period of their fertility entails even greater population problems. Indicator for this is the data for enrolled and completed students in primary and secondary schools and enrolled students at universities. These data are precise and we can rely on them, and they, unfortunately, show that the number of born children of each generation deviates from the number of enrolled and graduated students of the same generation for several thousand. That difference is the number of emigrated children, with their parents of course, whose number should in principle be the same or double. A good example is the official data on the number of completed secondary school students in the three-year and four-year secondary education in the country in the school year 2017/2018. A total of 925 high school students completed three-year and 17,298 high school students in a four-year education or a total of 18,223 high school students. In 1999 and 2000, ie 18 years ago when these high school students were born, their number was 27.309 and 29.308 live births respectively. Suppose a very small proportion of them died or are not enrolled in compulsory secondary education, but the difference is still around 10,000 high school students. That’s 1/3 of the generation, and this is the case with all generations, and these are actually emigrants from only one school generation. Each year, that many, plus their parents, lead us to the defeating figure of the vast emigration from the country abroad calculated according to this criterion.
What should be done to prevent or at least alleviate this very serious problem of natural reduction and simultaneous large emigration of the population of the country? The answer is very complex and requires very thorough and long-term solutions that, it seems, no one in the country either wants to study thoroughly, much less solve.

Views expressed in this article are personal views of the author and do not represent the editorial policy of Nezavisen Vesnik