Demographic Prognosis Of Metropolitan Areas. A Study Of Romania'S Integration Quality Into The European Union

The benefits, opportunities and challenges deriving from Romanina's becoming a member of the European Union, strongly represent the most intense debated topic in the scientific community of Romanian economists. Their attention is oriented towards the analysis of the impact that Romania's accession produced at social and economic level and towards the ways in which this impact reflects on the Romanian business environment and, ultimately, on the individual welfare. In order for such an analysis to be valuable it must be grounded on models and instruments able to offer a most accurate view of the essence of economic phenomena and their evolution along a certain reference period. For these reasons, the present study has in view to elaborate a rigorous and complex model able to offer a solid basis for economic analysis directed towards assessing the impact of Romania's accession to the European Union. This framework has the role and ability to reflect the dynamic and intricate system of population structure and, henceforth, a provisional model for demographic evolution in the context of integration is more than necessary. In this paper, the attention of the authors will focus on urban metropolitan areas in order to create a prognosis model of the demographic evolution of these areas taking stock of Romania's new condition as member state of the EU. The endeavor will demonstrate that already existing demographic patterns are not able to describe present conditions and will propose a new model of prognosis for demographic evolution in urban areas, a model adapted to present economic and social circumstances.