Romania’s resident population went under the 20 million threshold for the first time after the 1989 Revolution which marked the end of the country’s communist regime, Tudorel Andrei, president of the National Statistics Institute (INS) said on Thursday, June 5.

“We found that 2013 was the first year after the Revolution with a resident population of less than 20 million. It is unfortunate that I have to bring such news. 2013 was also the first year when the number of newborns for the resident population was lower than 180,000,” the official said, according to Agerpres newswire.

He pointed out that the number of newborns was the lowest after World War II (WWII) and that the downtrend has been stretching on a longer period of time. For comparison, in 1990, the number of newborn was almost 315,000, while in the 1968-1970 period, when abortions were declared illegal in Romania, there were more than 500,000 newborns each year.

The main cause for this trend is emigration, as many Romanians left the country after 1990, due to economic hardship during the transition period. This trend intensified after Romania joined the European Union (EU) in 2007 and Romanians could go to other EU countries without visas. Most of those who left the country are between 25 and 45 years, which is the interval when people decide to have children, INS representatives explained.

In recent years, however, the decline in resident population was mainly due to natural phenomenon, as the birth rate was constantly lower than the death rate.

If current trends continue, by 2050 Romania’s population could drop below 15 million, according to projections released by INS.

editor@romania-insider.com