IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popdev/v51y2025i4p1435-1465.html

A New Approach to Understanding Population Change in Central and Eastern Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Csaba G. Tóth

Abstract

This study introduces a novel approach to decomposing population change by identifying the separate contributions of fertility, mortality, net migration, and initial age structure using a stationary population model. The strength of this scenario‐based decomposition method lies in the additivity of the results: the contributions of these factors, along with the interaction effect, sum to equal the total population change. In addition, identifying the direct impact of initial age structure on population change offers new insights into the drivers of population dynamics. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was one of the regions hit most by population decline between 1990 and 2020; however, it was marked by significant variation across countries. By decomposing population change, we found that the positive impact of the relatively young initial age structure in the CEE region was as large as the population‐reducing effect of negative net migration, while the positive impact of mortality improvement offset one‐third of the population‐reducing effect of low fertility. On the other hand, the initial age structure had a crucial role in explaining differences in country‐level population change during the study period.

Suggested Citation

  • Csaba G. Tóth, 2025. "A New Approach to Understanding Population Change in Central and Eastern Europe," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 51(4), pages 1435-1465, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:51:y:2025:i:4:p:1435-1465
    DOI: 10.1111/padr.70029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70029
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/padr.70029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:51:y:2025:i:4:p:1435-1465. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0098-7921 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.