Romania's resident population drops to 19.524 million persons (INS)

Romania's resident population hit 19.524 million people on 1 January 2018, down 120,700 people as compared to the same period last year, show data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) on Wednesday. 

According to the quoted source, the main cause of this decrease is the negative natural growth of the population (the number of deaths exceeds the number of live births by 71,125). 

Moreover, INS notes that Romania continues to be an emigration country, the phenomenon of emigration being the second main cause for the reduction of Romania's population. The international migration balance in 2017 was negative, the number of emigrants exceeding that of immigrants by 53,000 people. In 2017, male emigration was predominant (50.9 percent). Men were the majority among immigrants too (53.5 percent). 

According to the reference bracket, urban population, as well as the female one represent a majority, of 53.8 percent of the overall population, 51.1 percent, respectively. 

The INS research also shows that the demographic ageing dynamics widens even further, with 116.9 elderly per 100 young people below 15 years old. In this context, the gap between the 65-year old population and above and the young population in the 0-14 age bracket reached on 1 January 2018 , 513,000 people and 3.551 million people, respectively as compared to 3.038 people, up 439,000 on 1 January 2017. 

On 1 January 2018, the resident population in the urban area amounted to 10.498 million people, down 0.3 percent y-o-y. The female population stood at 9.980 million, down 0.6 percent y-o-y. 

The share of the 0-14 age range population within the entire population maintained at the value determined for 1 January 2017 (15.6 percent), whereas the share of the 65-year old and above population recorded a 0.4 percentage point increase (from 17.8 percent to 18.2 percent, on 1 January 2018). Thus, the demographic dependency ratio has increased from 50.1 percent (on 1 January 2017) to 50.9 young and elderly people to 100 adult people (on 1 January 2018). 

The resident population comprises the entire population (Romanian, foreign citizens or without citizenship) who usually have residence in Romania for at least 12 months.