Is the Czech Republic Dying?

It’s been a continuing trend in many first-world countries across the globe: death rates exceed birth rates, calling the future of naturalized populations into question. It’s being called “natural decrease”, and it’s a relatively new phenomenon.

Simple mathematics: if more people are dying than being born, a population will inevitably decrease. This doesn’t mean that a country faces extinction – a stable middle ground could eventually be found – but repercussions are likely to be felt until then, especially the economic effect of having a growing elderly population and a declining workforce.

In comparison, only 28% of the counties in the United States reported the same.

In the Czech Republic, most of the counties that have seen a decrease are in Moravia and Southwest Bohemia. In most areas of Prague and Central Bohemia, birth rates have exceeded death rates.

Another measure of population stability might be fertility rate – the average number of children a woman in her child-bearing years is expected to produce. For a country’s population demographics to remain stable, that number should be about 2, meaning the average family unit reproduces the same number of children to “replace” themselves.

Despite radical changes across Europe over the past century, the country’s population has remained relatively stable, hitting a peak of 10.7 million in 1930 and dipping to 8.9 million in 1950. It’s hovered between those two numbers ever since.

In many countries, the declining natural population numbers have been offset by migration; in Germany, natural decrease has been effectively halted by immigration in recent years.

But that hasn’t necessarily been the case in the Czech Republic: despite the recent influx of migrants to Europe, few see the country as a popular destination.

According to 2001 census data, nearly 95% of the country’s population identified themselves as Czech or Moravian. (During the 2011 census, nearly a quarter of the population refused to answer the nationality question as a form of protest).