FERTILITY TRENDS IN EUROPE: FERTILITY CHANGES AND RECENT CHARACTERISTICS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Abstract

At the and of the 20th century and at turn of the 21st century low and very low fertility is one of the key demographic and policy chalanges in all European countries. The concept of the second demographic transition has relevance for explaining the ongoing changes in fertility patterns across Europe. The widespread transition from high to low fertility was strongly pronounced in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among others, one of the purposes of this paper is to supplement the ongoing debate about the `true`nature of the income - fertility and urbanization – fertility nexus with evidence from panel dataset of 109 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the early 1990s there has been a marked shift in circumstances for reproductive behaviour in Bosnia and Herzegovina reflecting a move from a satisfactory and a more or less stable socio-economic and living environment to more impoverished living conditions with regard to each segment of life. The principal changes in fertility trends occuring in Bosnia and Herzegovina was in focus. The analysis presented here are based on statistical data from population censuses, more recent estimates from official sources and via fieldwork.