Bulgaria's Population Decreasing and Aging – NSI

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As of end-December 2013 the population of Bulgaria was 7,245,677 persons representing 1.5% of the EU population, ranking the country at the 16th place immediately after Austria.

The negative tendencies in the development of demographic processes during the last decades and the resulting from them changes in the population number and structures strongly influence the basic society systems: economy, education, health insurance and social protection, the final data of Bulgaria's National Statistical Institute (NSI) study on Demographic Processes in 2013 showed.

The current demographic situation in the country is characterized by a continuing decrease of the population number, population aging, decreasing crude birth rate and still high level of mortality. As positive tendencies in 2013 could be mentioned the decreasing crude death rate and infant mortality rate and the increasing life expectancy at birth.

Compared to 2012, Bulgaria's population has decreased by 38 875 persons or 0.5%. The process of population aging continues, NSI informs. By the end of 2013 the number of persons aged 65 and over was 1,417,667 or 19.6% of the country population. Compared to 2012, the share of population aged 65 and over has increased by 0.4% and compared to 2001-by 2.7%.

Aging of population is observed in the bigger part of EU countries. At the beginning of 2013, the share of population aged 65 and over for EU-28 was 18.2% or 0.3% higher than the previous year. Highest is the share of elderly population in Italy-21.2%, followed by Germany (20.7%), Greece (20.1%) and Portugal (19.4%) and lowest in Ireland-12.2%.

The population aging in Bulgaria leads to increase of the population average age. It has increased from 40.4 years in...

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