Thirty years of crisis: Romania’s demographic situation

26 May, 2025

Several Eastern European nations are experiencing depopulation today. They, like their peers in the West, are experiencing sub-replacement fertility. However, they distinguish themselves due to their high degree of emigration. The end of the Cold War and the rise of the European Union have given a generation of Eastern European youth the option of migrating to (and working in) in the wealthier West.

Romania is particularly good example of this (as was Ukraine prior to the Russo-Ukrainian War - and one imagines that the war has only worsened their demographic challenges).

This¹ is a particularly good article about the Romanian situation.

Over the past three decades, Romania has been among the fastest-depopulating countries in the European Union. Between the beginning of its political and economic transition and 2021, the country lost as much as 17% of its population. During this period, Romania’s population decreased by an average of 130,000 people per year – the equivalent of a medium-sized Romanian city.

...

The primary driver behind Romania’s dramatic population decline is mass labour-related emigration. According to World Bank estimates, at least 4 million Romanian citizens – roughly 20% of the total population – reside abroad, either permanently or seasonally. ... The phenomenon of mass labour migration is compounded by a low birth rate, which is insufficient to ensure generational replacement. ¹

The consequences of Romanian depopulation include (1) depressed economic growth and (2) the rise of support for right-wing parties among those left behind (with their concern for protecting the "national essence"). In some respects this pattern is not dissimilar to what is seen in parts of the US.

Romania of course has its own dark history with coercive "pronatalist" policies during the Cold War. Decree 770 outlawed contraception, abortion, and introduced mandatory pregnancy examinations. It led to variety of harms: child abandonment (some of whom were sent West for adoption) and deaths due to illegal abortions. Romanians remember the experience and understandably have no desire to repeat it.

Romania has opened its doors to migrant workers from outside the EU ... slightly. But few intend to settle there and this is unlikely to resolve the demographic crisis Romania faces.

While reading this article, I learned that Romania, interestingly, does grant citizenship to citizens of neighboring countries (Moldova, Ukraine) who live in areas which were once "Romanian" before borders were shifted during and after the Second World War. One wonders how many other nations will seek to entice lost "citizens" just across the border, or elsewhere in the world.