Final census results add 1 mln Romanians to preliminary data, over half a million Rroma, under-registration of migrants

Romania's National Institute of Statistics INS added one million Romanians to the number released as preliminary data after the 2011 census, which brings the total number of Romanians to 20.1 million. The drop compared to 2002, when the previous census was organized, is of 1.5 million Romanians. The INS discovered that around 1.1 million people were not included in the 2011 census, and the data was completed using administrative sources, meaning databases from seven public institutions. The final results of the 2011 census show that 54 percent of Romania's inhabitants, or some 10.8 million, live in cities, with the weight of the people who live in urban areas up 1.3 percentage points compared to 2002. The largest counties by number of inhabitants are Bucharest, with 1.8 million people, Iasi, with 770,000, Prahova, with 762,000. The smallest counties are Covasna, 210,000 people, and Tulcea, 213,000. Demographic data show children up to 14 year old make almost 16 percent of the population, young people 15 to 24 cover 12.3 percent, while the biggest group is made of 25 to 64 year olds – 55.7 percent. Those over 65 make 16.1 percent of Romania's population, and people above 85 are 1.3 percent of the country's population. When it comes to ethnicity, 88.9 percent of those who declared their ethnicity – or 16.7 million people said they are Romanians, while 6.5 percent – or 1.2 million said they were Hungarians. Only 3.3 percent – or 621,000 said they were of Rroma ethnicity, which shows a growth from 2.5 percent in 2002. On the religion front, 18,8 million people chose to declare their faith, and 88.5 of them said they were orthodox, while 4.6 percent were Catholic, 2% percent declared a reformed religion and 1.9 percent, Pentecostal. Around half of the resident population for whom the marital status was available said they were married, 4.8 million women, and 4.8 million men, while two out of five people were never married. The divorced people hold a weight of 4.2 percent, while 745,000 people said they are living in consensual union. Out of the total usual resident population aged 10 years and over, 44.2 percent have a low educational level (primary, lower secondary or no graduated school), 41.4 percent, a medium level (post-high school,high school, vocational or foremen education) and 14.4 percent an upper level - university. In October 2011, there were 245,000 illiterate people in Romania, according to census data. The number of people who left abroad for a period of at least one year, but do not belong to usualresident population, is 727,000 and, “obviously, comprises only a part of external migrants number,” according to the INS. “The significant under-registration was determined by the fact that, at the critical moment of the census, a large share of these persons were left abroad with their entire families and no one was in the country able to declare the information required for them,” according to the INS.