Croatia population is continuing to shrink with recent figures showing that there were around 27,000 less citizens in the country in 2015 compared with 2014. This a trend that has been continuing for a few years, Croatia has one of the oldest populations of all European Union countries and this can be seen in the birth to death ratio from last year.

According to data from the national statistical office there were 38,142 births in Croatia in 2015 and 55,651 deaths. The figures show that Croatia had a population 4.210,770 last year which is around 27,000 less than in 2014.

A proportion of this drop in population numbers comes from Croatians leaving the country to find work in other EU member states. However the biggest problem is the overall age of the population. The demographic picture has been changing for some years. The average age, which was 30.7 sixty years ago, has risen to 41.7. Almost one quarter of the population of Croatia today is over 60 years old, while fifty years ago, it was only 12 percent.