The Changing Demographic Profile Of Romanian Rural Areas

In recent decades, most European countries have faced demographic phenomena, having as main characteristic birth rate decrease and ageing of population. Depending on the existing socio- economic conditions, these phenomena were different across countries: Romania was not an exception to those trends in Europe. The main objective of this paper is to highlight the key features of rural demographic structures and their evolution. Based on the proposed objective, the analysis was conducted on three levels with related questions: i) rural demographic structures and dynamics – is sustainable rural development possible in the context of continuing deterioration of human capital?; ii) spatial disparities – which are the specific demographic characteristics at different territorial levels?; iii) proposals – which are the ways for improving the rural population’s situation?. The analysis of the statistical data revealed the following characteristics: i) the rural population has been constantly decreasing, a process that started with the Revolution of 1989; ii) the rural population growth rate has had increasingly large negative values since 1992 – a process with a strong territorial footprint; iii) the rural population has experienced a strong aging process; iv) the main drivers of population decline are the negative natural increase and migration; iv) at local level, there is a process of population concentration in highly and newly urbanized areas; in parallel, there is a depopulation of the rural areas, particularly of the peripheral ones.