Bulgarian demographics: Truth, fiction and is there something to worry about?

This is the final authoritative post I will make on this issue. I have seen way too many misleading statements from submitters that pop up every month when a western media posts about us being a dying nation. Ranging from claims like this is ok to 'its the economy's fault. I am not willing to dox myself but this is something I have explored extensively in the last 5 years looking for 'non obvious solutions'. I have read pretty much most authoritative papers from the last 10 years about fertility rates, their relations to urbanization,health, GDP and etc. I will summarize in this single post a final sentence for this topic. This thread will be pinned for 1 week so people can read it and know what are the facts and what is fiction about Bulgaria then the post will be moved to the right so people can find it easily and cross reference it in the future when this debate inevitably comes back to bite us with the next BBC article.

The definitive sources:

https://www.nsi.bg/ <- holds current up to date data. They report it to Eurostat.

http://statlib.nsi.bg:8181/bg/lister.php?iid=DO-010001774&page=27 <- Data going back 50 years

http://statlib.nsi.bg:8181/bg/lister.php?iid=DO-010003535&page=82 <- Pretty much the best archive for the old Data before 1980. You can see all kinds of stats in there and I spent days transcribing old 'Статистически годишници' into excels so I can run regressions on the datasets.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/bulgaria/2019/ <- population pyramids so you can see the decline moving through the ages and reverberating

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2017&locations=BG-FR-SE-CZ-NG&start=1960&view=chart <- so you can see the graph properly (this is not the best data since the world bank uses different sources but its almost the same)

Eurostat:

Eurostat.com

• What is the problem?

The problem is Bulgaria is projected to be the fastest shrinking nation in the world. You can see that from the worldbank data. By 2100 we are projected to be below 4M.

• What are and what are NOT the causes?

The cause is the same: post industrial society suffering from low fertility rate.

But thats not really the case? Old people are simply dying too much and thats why the nation is shrinking.

YES. But they would die regardless. You are talking of 'death rate'. The issue is the old people dying today had a fertility rate below the REPLACEMENT RATE OF 2.1 for a post-industrial country. The replacement rate in countries like Congo would be higher. But for us its 2.1 because child mortality is low and people live to 70+. At best you can make an argument it should be 2.2 which is even worse.

If you look at this and this. You will notice that there are waves in the distribution of the population pyramid that follow the curves of the fertility rate. That is because obviously with lower fertility rate at certain year (for example 1990) less people are born and they dont appear on the population curve. Also the age curve is influenced by death with the people at the top shrinking expectedly faster than the young people at the bottom.

The point is (as obvious as it is, but some people do not seem to understand it): There is a causal relationship between how many people are dying right now and the fertility rate they had during their 'fertile' years. Simply put we are in this place because your mother and fathers had usually 1 at best 2 kids. Now they are starting to die off, but since they were a generation where the population fertility was above 2, the total children born today are way less than the people dying.

But this will normalize! We are at an EU average level.

No. SHUT UP. That is false and stupid. There is no such thing as an average level for fertility that is good. Its either above 2.1 or its below and the nation is simply dying. The truth is every European nation is dying and has the same problem. But in the west they solve this by mass migration. So they keep their economies functioning. We at least for now are not attractive enough for this solution. And when the people aged 40-50 start retiring en masse we will have a total collapse of all the already strained social safety systems.

On top of that this is will continue to get worse for our children. Since we are not at 2.1 the same will be true for the people that are being born today. They will have the same issue continuously. The retirement age will probably become something like 70.

BUT ITS BECAUSE OF |THE ECONOMY.

NO SHUT THE FCK UP. Nigeria is practically a third world country. it has fertility rate of 6! Ask them how is their economical development.

But there is a fall during the 90s in fertility.

Yes. Because we are POST industrial society, meaning we have moved ot the cities and most people work in services and not on the fields. In post industrial society a booming economy never translates in anything above 2.1 but an economical downturn translates in massive falls due ot people deciding 'we cant support a baby financially in at this time'. And people are not wrong. Its the immediate good decision but a bad long term decision. The point is you cant get it at 2.1

• Well wtf then? Why is it happening?

Simply put: because people don't need kids. 100 years ago having a child was 'profitable'. You had another pair of hands to help in gathering of the agricultural stuff. Kids were a net economical gain for the families most of the time. Now? Kids are practically a luxury. An immense burden on your finances for up to 20 years(some a lot more). Its a 'self inflicted defeat'.

• How can we solve this?

We dont know. I spend a lot of time searching for causation between fertility rates and urbanization (its possible that my math was wrong since I used very old data from the links at the top and the commies weren't precise about the land distribution of the births) , but the regression didnt turn out that significant. But there are studies that prove at least marginal relationship. There is no known solution to this. Every post industrial revolution country suffers from this. Except - Israel. Fertility rate ~3.1. I spent a lot of time talking to Israelis. Most of the families do have 3 kids or at least 2. And every single time I asked why I got the same answer: "Its kind of a return for the lives lost". Take it as you will. The only working solution is massive campaign that is 'do or die or revenge type' filled ot the brim with nationalism like 'never again' slogans remembering past misfortunes. Denmark and Sweden are practically showering people with money and positive ads like this but its not enough. People are way more averse sensitive than 'this is good' sensitive.

TL;DR: Yes we are a dying nation. Yes you personally didnt create it (assuming most of us are below 35). Yes if you are not with at least 2 kids by the age of 30, you are continuing the problem. No there is no simple solution - you just have to have kids.