Photo: PixabayDuring the last year, 135,194 people changed their place of residence, i.e. permanently moved from one place to another in Serbia, most often to Belgrade and Vojvodina. The average age of those who decided to take such a step is 34.7 years.
This is shown by the latest data from the Republic Institute of Statistics (RZS), according to which in 2021 the largest number of relocations was by far in Belgrade. Namely, 51,206 (37.9 percent) are immigrants and 47,293 (35 percent) are those who moved away from the capital.
In addition to Belgrade, there was a positive migration balance, i.e. more immigrants than emigrants, in South Bačka, then Srem, North Bačka, Nišava region and South Banat, while the migration balance was negative in the other 19 areas. A negative trend was recorded in Zapadnobačka oblast, where there are more emigrants than immigrated, and it is similar in the North Banat oblast, while the worst situation is in the Central Banat oblast.
When migrations at the level of municipalities or cities are analyzed among the RSO data, only 49 of them recorded a positive migration balance last year, while in one the balance was equal to zero, and in the other 119 municipalities and cities the migration balance was negative.
The data show that most of the residents move to the vicinity of their former place of residence. Last year, 36.3 percent of people moved from one municipality or city to another within the same area, and the least from one to another settlement within the same municipality or city - 28.1 percent.
Young people between the ages of 25-34 move the most, followed by those slightly older than 35-44, and then high school students and students aged 15-24. It is interesting that suitcases are packed more often by women, almost at all ages, except for the youngest, up to the age of four, and significantly more people over 45 than those under 15 move.
BELGRADE MIGRATION
Belgrade never stands still, even though it receives many more people every day than any other city in Serbia. However, changes are also taking place within the city, as many are moving from one municipality to another.
Sociologist Milica Vesković Anđelković explains that people mostly change municipalities because of work, school - if they have children, but also that it is very often because of the price of real estate, quality, larger square footage and green areas, Blic writes.
"Simply, some parts of the city are cheaper and more accessible to young married couples and students than the center of Belgrade or even New Belgrade lately," Vesković Anđelkovićeva points out.
According to demographers, Zvezdara is one of the municipalities with a positive migration balance, i.e. the most immigrated residents. It is attractive, as they say, because of the forest, parks and kindergartens. Novi Belgrade is in demand because of many business centers, banks and IT companies, and Vračar because of law offices.
"Stari Grad and Savski Venac are city municipalities that have limited space and cannot expand." These are municipalities more oriented to that business environment, so that is one of the reasons why more people move out than move in. And that later generates the average age in those municipalities," emphasizes Gordana Bjelobrk, a demographer in the RZS, and adds that Belgrade is the most attractive to young people.
A DEEPER GAP
Demographer Vladimir Nikitović from the Institute of Social Sciences agrees with her, stating in his work that the direction and intensity of internal migrations are determined by regional and sub-regional differences. A special place, he says, has an ever-deepening gap between larger city centers and the rest of the country in terms of economic development, diversification and offer of jobs, housing, health care, overall quality of life, as well as the subjective experience of opportunities to achieve personal life goals.
"The rapidly growing metropolitan area of Belgrade and Novi Sad, which are the two largest cities in Serbia, is the focal point of internal migration flows. Most other areas in the country have been characterized by migration outflow for years, especially in the border and mountainous areas of the South and East Serbia Region and the Šumadija and West Serbia Regions. This pattern of internal migrations is deeply rooted in previous periods, but it has also been reinforced by the process of population reduction and aging since the 1990s," explains Nikitović.
According to him, the average age of the population involved in resettlement within Serbia is almost 10 years lower than the average age of the country's total population, with the most mobile age group usually being 20-34 years old.
"Women traditionally change their place of residence more often than men, regardless of the type of settlement, and when moving to a longer distance, they tend to move to regional and district centers. The main direction of internal migration flows in the country – from mountainous and hilly areas to plains – could also be labeled as migration from south to north. "In the past, these were mostly migrations from villages, especially mountain ones, to nearby cities, while today, when the demographic capacities of the hinterland have subsided, the strongest outflows are from small and medium-sized cities to the largest centers in the country," recalls Nikitović.
THE MOST ENDANGERED AREAS
Internal migrations in Serbia contributed, according to Nikitović, to further depopulation, gender imbalance, decline and aging of the workforce, as well as the loss of human capital in mountainous and border areas, especially in their rural areas. The issue of spatial imbalance in the gender distribution of the population is of particular importance for the population in the optimal reproductive age (20–39).
"As the process of masculinization of this age group in the 21st century has progressed across the country, especially in the once rapidly growing industrial centers, there are more women than men in the 20-39 age group only in the most populous areas centered on the largest cities. Such a spatial pattern of this indicator could be a serious challenge for policies that stimulate an increase in the number of births and in general for the sustainable development of most areas in the two southern regions of Serbia," concludes Nikitović.
FIVE-YEAR STATISTICS
In the period 2017–2021. Belgrade and Vojvodina achieved a positive migration balance, which in the capital, on an annual level, amounts to an average of about 6,000 persons, while in Vojvodina it amounts to about 800 persons. In the same period, from the region of Šumadija and Western Serbia, the number of emigrants is consistently higher than the number of people who immigrated, which means that this region loses an average of 3,800 inhabitants per year based on internal migration alone. In the last five years, the region of Southern and Eastern Serbia has had a negative migration balance, which averages around 3,000 per year.
Source: blic.rs
