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Croatia’s ever decreasing population – in last five years over 200,000 have left Shutterstock

Croatia’s ever decreasing population – in last five years over 200,000 have left

Written by  Jun 07, 2022

In the past five years, 177,470 Croatian citizens reported temporary departure from Croatia, and 55,821 citizens reported permanent emigration. Thus, a total of 233,291 citizens temporarily and permanently left Croatia from 2017 to 2021, Večernji list writes on Tuesday.

Due to the discrepancy between the data on the number of inhabitants in Croatia of 3.88 million, including about 650 thousand minors, and the number of adult voters residing in Croatia of 3.68 million, the newspaper asked the Ministry of the Interior to send annual data on the number of citizens who deregistered their residence from Croatia due to permanent emigration and on the number of citizens who reported temporary departure from the country.

The Ministry of the Interior sent data on the number of citizens who had permanently deregistered and the number of citizens who reported temporary trips abroad for each year individually and made an interesting note "that the data below do not add up by year because, for example, someone who reported temporary departure in one year may have subsequently reported return, etc.… ”

However, the newspaper did not receive an answer from the Ministry of the Interior to the question of how many citizens who reported temporary departure actually returned to the country, but only a remark that they do not add data by years on temporary and permanent residence.

However, if there was a significant return of citizens who had left, this would be have been determined by the 2021 census, because the Croatian census included all citizens who lived in their place of residence before the reference moment of the census (August 31, 2021).

"Unfortunately, there are no such returnees, otherwise we would have specific data on the number of returnees, and not the answer that maybe someone who reported a temporary departure subsequently reported a return. The reality is that we have incredible depopulation by emigration and natural decline. Unfortunately, the data on the emigration of Croatian citizens and the natural decline of the population is confirmed by the number of inhabitants determined by the 2021 census. We must finally establish a population register to sort out this mess of data,” stated demographer Stjepan Šterc.

The Voice of Dubrovnik

THE VOICE OF DUBROVNIK


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