The demographic profile of rural areas in Romania

• Published in: Calitatea vieţii Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 289 - 317
• Main Authors: Hărăguș, Mihaela, Földes, Ionuț
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bucharest Editura Academiei Romane, Publishing House of the Romanian Academy 2021
• Subjects: Economic development; Internal migration; Migration; Population characteristics; Population growth; Rural areas; Urban areas; Romania
• ISSN: 1018-0389; 1844-5292
• DOI: 10.46841/RCV.2020.04.01

This paper aims to provide descriptive results about demographic trends (natality, mortality, and migration) and their effect on age structure in Romania in the past 30 years. We focus on analysing rural areas, since, while having a negative natural growth and negative net external migration values, internal migration has further affected rural areas by increasing the rate of population decline in many localities. Apart from describing rural areas at a general level, we also differentiate various rural localities according to two criteria, namely inclusion in functional urban areas of every county seat and the existence of marginalised communities within localities’ administrative territory. This differentiation allowed us to portray population characteristics within the broader context of uneven economic development across Romania. Various well-developed cities, known as magnet cities, contribute not only to an increase of population volumes in the surrounding rural settlements but also to other demographic discrepancies between the growth poles and the peripheries. Keywords: rural areas; demographic change; functional urban areas; marginalized communities.