Population Ageing in Central and Eastern Europe

Societal and Policy Implications

Andreas Hoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317077886
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gerontology
• Index: Social Sciences

During the 1990s, Europe became the first continent with a 'mature society', where people aged 60 years and older outnumber children and as this trend continues, the resulting 'ageing societies' will differ from previous societies in their make-up, in their needs, and in their resource allocation. Population ageing poses an even greater challenge to the post-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe. While still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the economic and social transition process following the breakdown of communism, they are now facing even more rapid demographic change than Western Europe. This book brings together leading scholars to present an understanding of the processes underlying the very rapid population ageing in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to discussing the main demographic drivers behind this development in each of the countries examined, this volume also discusses its implications for policy, healthcare provision, workforces, intergenerational family relations, the social cohesion of future Central and Eastern European societies, and the quality of life experienced by their citizens. Organised around broad geographical regions with final sections analysing the book's findings and their future implications, Population Ageing in Central and Eastern Europe will be of interest to gerontologists, policy makers, students and scholars of population change

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Drivers of Population Ageing in Central and Eastern Europe – Fertility, Mortality and Migration

Andreas Hoff

Population Ageing in Central and Eastern Europe in the Global Context

The United Nations identified demographic global population ageing as one of the three main global challenges of the 21st century (beside global climate change and global terrorism). In contrast to what the term population ageing seems to suggest, the underlying demographic processes are more multifaceted and much more complex than a linear relationship of rising life expectancy – growing numbers of older people – ageing population. Population ageing is caused by three main ‘drivers’: mortality, fertility and migration. Increasing longevity results in greater numbers and a larger share of older people in the population. Falling fertility results in fewer children and adolescents and, therefore, a decreasing share of younger people in the population, thus also contributing to a larger share of older people relative to younger age groups. Migration has the potential to influence the population age structure as well, depending on direction of migration flows (immigration/emigration), age structure of migration (predominantly younger/older migrants) and numbers of migrants relative to the domestic population.

During the 1990s, Europe became the first continent with a ‘mature society’, where people aged 60 years and older outnumber children (Harper 2005). By 2030 nearly half of the population of Western Europe will be over 50 years old and almost a quarter of the EU27 population will be 65 years and older (Giannakouris 2008). The resulting ‘ageing societies’ will differ from previous societies in their make-up, in their needs and in their resource allocation. Population ageing does not only change the age structure of populations – it has knock-on effects for every single aspect of society, including the composition of the workforce and future economic growth, family structures and intergenerational solidarity, redistribution of resources through the welfare state and the healthcare system, the nature of required infrastructure, housing and facilities, education as well as consumption and leisure.

Population ageing poses an even greater challenge to the post-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe. In its broadest definition, Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE) includes Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, East Germany¹, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia (European part), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Ukraine (Hoff and Perek-Białas 2008). The focus of this chapter, however, will be on the CEE countries that joined the European Union (EU) since 2004, as well as the EU candidate and potential candidate countries from South Eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia).

While still struggling to cope with the aftermath of the economic and social transition process following the breakdown of communism, these countries are now facing even more rapid demographic change than Western Europe. Given the transitional nature of their institutions, they are ill prepared for this change. For more than 20 years now, CEE has been undergoing the transition from ‘state-socialist’ societies with planned economies to ‘free’ societies with market-oriented economies. The re-organization of social institutions during this transition period, that still has not come to an end yet, has been accompanied by dramatic changes of people’s lives.

However, not only is demographic ageing in CEE particularly challenging since it occurs in the context of another ongoing societal transformation process. As was argued elsewhere (Hoff 2008), the processes of post-communist transition and population ageing interact with each other. Not only does the post-communist transition process aggravate the effects of population ageing, the post-communist transition process itself has become a causal factor contributing to population ageing. The link between declining fertility in response to socio-economic uncertainty is well established in demography (Teitelbaum and Winter 1985, Lesthaeghe 1989, Walberg et al 1998, Eloundou-Enyegue, Stokes & Cornwell 2000). Thus, Hoff argues somewhat provocatively that population ageing in CEE was an unintended side effect of ‘ … the socio-economic insecurity following the eonomic crisis accompanying the transformation of the CEE planned economies to market economies.’ (Hoff 2008: 15)

Mortality, Fertility, Migration and Population Ageing in CEE

In the following, a brief overview of how the three drivers mortality, fertility and migration have developed over the past half century in CEE and how they have impacted on population age structure in CEE societies will be given – a more detailed account can be found in Hoff (2008). We have already noticed that population ageing in CEE occurred later than in Western Europe. Historically, this is a familiar pattern. Not only the second demographic transition set in later than in the West – the same trend could already be observed in the first demographic transition in the 19th century. Critical then was the comparatively late decline in fertility, which only happened by the end of the 19th century – more than a century later than in France, half a century later than in the rest of Western Europe and even trailing the Central European ‘laggards’ Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic (Chesnais 1992).

This pattern is mirrored in today’s development. A sharp drop in fertility between 1990 and 2000 is the crucial feature of the contemporary demographic transition in CEE, coinciding with the most dramatic effects of post-communist transformation. While in 1989/1990 many CEE countries sported total fertility rates at or just below replacement level (2.1 births per woman), they had dropped to well below 1.5 children per woman in all CEE countries, except Albania, Macedonia and Serbia which are lagging behind in this development, as a result of starting from a higher fertility level in 1989/1990. At the other end of the spectrum is the Czech Republic, with an exceptionally low fertility level of 1.1 children per woman (more details can be found in Hoff 2008).

Whereas demographic ageing in Western Europe is characterized by substantial gains in longevity due to continuously rising life expectancy for both women and men, CEE has witnessed only comparatively small gains in life expectancy. Though some countries are beginning to catch up with Western European levels of male life expectancy at birth (Czech Republic, Slovenia), others have hardly seen any gains in longevity (namely the former Soviet Republics Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine). Slovenian men reached a life expectancy at birth of 73.5 years in 2005 – compared with 77 years for the EU15, but only 66 years for men in the Baltic countries (Hoff 2008). Infamously, Russia witnessed declining life expectancies for nearly three decades from 64 (1970) to 59 years in 2000 before slightly recovering. In contrast, female life expectancy at birth followed the Western European example of continuous gain, albeit at a lower level, reaching 81 years for Slovenian women in 2005 – only a year less than EU15 average – with women in Russia (74 years), Romania (75.5 years), Bulgaria, Macedonia and Lithuania (76 years each) being at the lower end of the spectrum (Hoff 2008).

The third driver of population ageing, migration, is notoriously difficult to register, let alone to predict. What is certain, though, is that the migration balance for the new EU member states from CEE is negative. Eurostat estimates that emigration from CEE countries exceeded immigration by 1.7 million people over the period of 1960–2004 (Eurostat 2006). The majority of CEE countries (here referring to Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) have seen emigration exceeding immigration during the 1990s, with Lithuania and Poland being the main sending countries since the breakdown of communism (Hoff 2008).

It was stated earlier that CEE societies, though ageing as well, are still trailing demographic development (population ageing) in Western Europe. This becomes evident when using various indicators of population ageing. If we consider the share of older people (65 years and older) in the total population, for example, we notice a steep upward slope in several of the CEE countries during the 1990s (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and the first part of the 2000s (Serbia-Montenegro), with Serbia, Latvia and Estonia almost reaching, and Bulgaria even surpassing, EU15 average by 2005 (for details see Hoff 2008). Using another measure – the old-age dependency ratio i.e. the number of older people in relation to the number of people of working age – we see CEE countries trailing the EU15 average. However, CEE saw steep increases during the 1990s, with growth rates between 7–8 per cent in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and 3–4 per cent in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia. Bulgaria was the forerunner of this development in CEE, with an 8 per cent increase as early as in the 1980s.

Population ageing in CEE set in later than in the West – but its course and impact will be more severe, due to the lack of comprehensive social security, health care/long-term care systems, social services and significant private savings. Understanding the drivers of this dramatic change (fertility, mortality, migration) and their underlying dynamics, as well as opportunity structures and push/pull factors influencing individual decisions underlying these processes is crucial for developing policies to address implications for older people, families, economies, and societies in CEE. It is also precondition to understanding the dynamics of mutual interaction between post-communist transition and population ageing.

Book Outline

The present book will make a major contribution to this by presenting a detailed analysis of the interplay between the demographic drivers in nine selected countries from the region in as many chapters, which will be combined with a discussion of implications of these demographic trends for their respective (ageing) societies. The authors of these chapters were bound to address the interaction between the demographic drivers in their respective countries since the 1960s, but were free to choose an area of interest to show the impact of population ageing on selected dimensions of society in more detail (foci selected included: age discrimination in society; family structure and intergenerational relations; informal support networks; health/health care; long-term care/social care; older workers; pensions and social security; rural/urban ageing; more general social policy implications). These ‘country reports’ are followed by another three chapters focusing on specific societal implications of population ageing in more detail, thereby discussing the situation in several rather than just one country.

The book is organized in four parts: I–III Population ageing in Eastern (I), Central Eastern (II) and South Eastern (III) Europe, consisting of three chapters each, and IV Societal and Policy Implications comprising another four chapters, including conclusions that will give an outlook of the likely future development and the prospect of sustainable demographic development in these countries. Next, the book contents will be introduced in a bit more detail.

Following this introduction, Part I ‘Population Ageing in Eastern Europe’ will focus on the Eastern part of the CEE region based on the examples of Poland, Lithuania and Russia. In Chapter 2 entitled ‘Population Ageing in Poland’ Ewa Frątczak provides a detailed elaboration of the basic demographic determinants of population ageing in the context of Polish society. Thereby, she goes beyond a mere discussion of the demographic drivers by shedding light on underlying factors such as postponement of childbearing, a delayed drop in mortality compared with other countries and transnational migration trends. This is followed by a detailed account of past, present and future directions of demographic ageing in Poland, taking into account a gender perspective. The special focus of Ewa Frątczak’s chapter are micro and macro effects of demographic ageing on nuclear family structures and intergenerational family relations, which she analyses using ‘family status life table models’ as macro-simulation models that allow to measure the impact of demographic determinants on changes in family size and structure i.e. family dynamics.

Sarmitė Mikulionienė begins her chapter ‘Population Ageing in Lithuania: The Need for a New Attitude Towards Ageing’ by establishing the historical context of population ageing in Lithuania, which is followed by a detailed discussion of the effects of the demographic drivers, taking into consideration the gender dimension as well as rural/urban variation. She identifies negative images of ageing and older people in Lithuanian society as a major problem for an ageing society and investigates changing social norms and values in relation to older people as they are expressed in public media discourse.

Part I is concluded with Chapter 4 ‘Heterogeneity of Population Ageing in Russia and Policy Implications’ by Gaiane Safarova who begins with a thorough investigation of population age structure changes in Russia since 1989 and in the Soviet Union since 1959. The main argument of her chapter, however, is the prevailing vast heterogeneity of ageing in Russia. In order to prove this she considers different dimensions, including gender inequality, rural/urban variation and differences between the Russian regions, which are then compared with ageing processes in European societies. The chapter is concluded with a discussion of policy responses.

The second part of the book (Part II) ‘Population Ageing in Central Eastern Europe’ contains chapters on the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. Chapter 5 entitled ‘Ageing in the Czech Republic’ by Iva Holmerova, Hana Vankova, Bozena Juraskova and Dana Hrnciarikova begins with an overview of demographic ageing in the Czech Republic and the effects of the demographic drivers. It then identifies ageism as a common experience among older people in the Czech Republic, which is transmitted through Czech mass media. The central piece of this chapter, however, is the link (or rather the lack of interaction) between health care and social care systems for older people that the authors elaborate in much (historical) detail, which has inevitable implications for the Czech Republic’s national policies on ageing.

Chapter 6 by Zsuzsa Széman entitled ‘Ageing in Hungary: Demography and Labour Market Challenges’ builds on the discussion of population ageing trends based on the effects of the demographic drivers before turning its attention to the consequences for the Hungarian labour market in general and older workers in particular. She argues that labour market and public pension reform of the 1990s, intended to adapt the Hungarian labour market to the realities of a market economy, have had a long-lasting negative effect for older workers. Furthermore, she identifies poor health and low educational attainment as main factors responsible for the low labour force participation of Hungarian older workers compared with other countries.

Part II of the book is concluded with Chapter 7 written by Valentina Hlebec and Milivoja Šircelj entitled ‘Population ageing in Slovenia and social support networks of older people’. Following the claim that population ageing has already become a key feature of demographic development in Slovenia they elaborate on the effects of the underlying demographic drivers on Slovenian population age structure. This is followed by a presentation on changing living arrangements of retired Slovenians in the wake of population ageing before they turn their attention to the heart of this article – social support networks of older people. Hlebec and Šircelj propose a typology depicting older people’s varying degrees of integration into supportive networks based on original survey research on this topic carried out by the authors.

The third part of the book (part III) ‘Population Ageing in South Eastern Europe’ presents chapters on Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. In Chapter 8 ‘Demographic ageing and its economic consequences in Croatia’ Sandra Švaljek gives an overview over demographic development in Croatia in the 20th century and the effects of the drivers of demographic ageing. This is followed by future demographic projections until the middle of the 21st century. In the final major part of the chapter she considers the economic consequences of population ageing in Croatia, including rising public pension and public health care expenditures as well as the challenge of increasing labour force participation of older workers.

The subsequent Chapter 9 ‘Demographic Ageing in Romania: General and Specific Consequences on the Rural Population and the Relation with International Migration’ by Ágnes Neményi explains the evolution of population ageing in Romania. This is followed by an elaboration of social policy legislation with particular attention being paid to the public pensions, health care and social care systems as well as social assistance. The first of two central pieces of this chapter is an analysis of rural ageing, which is the predominant reality for most older people in Romania. The second piece links demographic ageing with another phenomenon particularly salient in the Romanian context – international labour migration.

Finally, Chapter 10 addresses ‘Population Ageing in Bulgaria – Demographic Dynamics at the Turn of the 21st Century’ prepared by Emil Hristov. This chapter contains a particularly comprehensive and robust statistical analysis of demographic ageing in Bulgaria building on a factor analysis of ageing, which is followed by a ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: The Drivers of Population Ageing in Central and Eastern Europe – Fertility, Mortality and Migration
• PART I POPULATION AGEING IN EASTERN EUROPE
• PART II POPULATION AGEING IN CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE
• PART III POPULATION AGEING IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE
• PART IV SOCIETAL AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
• Index