Migration and demographic shrinkage in rural areas in Serbia

Abstract

Until the mid-20th century, the rural areas had a population of more than three-quarters of the total population of Serbia, which mainly based its existence on agriculture. Subsequent processes of industrialization and urbanization, combined with a declining agricultural sector, have resulted in marginalization, devaluation and devastation of the rural areas. Since the 1960’s, Socialist Yugoslavia has accepted the strategy of rapid, centrally governed industrialization, which strongly hanged the image of rural areas. With rural areas left out of focus in the socialist development trajectory, millions of inhabitants were moved from villages to towns and cities, causing massive depopulation. Focusing socioeconomic development on the urban-based industrialization and the employment of unskilled and semiskilled labour from the villages, rural areas have suffered intensive emigration as well as demographic and socio-economic shrinkage. Consequently, rural shrinkage has become one of the largest structural development problems of Serbian society.