Slovak Academy of Sciences: No need to fear growth of Romani population

Romani population predictions were one aim of a recent monograph produced in Slovakia entitled "Reproduction of the Romani population in Slovakia and prognoses for Romani population developments to 2030". The research was presented by the Forecasting Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava last month.

Martina Lubyová, the director of the institute, said the monograph is intended to combat myths about the Romani population. The author, demographer Branislav Šprocha, points out that Slovak society is very sensitive to reports about the Romani minority.  

Most public discussion of Romani people concerns topics related to their reproductive behavior, developments as a population, unemployment rates, and crime. Šprocha said predictions are frequently made that the Romani population will soon become the majority in Slovakia.

The demographer says the cause of these biased predictions is a lack of information and the low "demographic literacy" of society related to a lack of appropriate promotion for actual demographic analyses. The aim of his monograph is not just to analyze the current state of affairs, but to identify developmental changes and create a forecast scenario.

Šprocha emphasizes that his monograph is the result of several years of effort to map the nature of the Romani population’s reproductive behavior in Slovakia. It includes an analysis of the fertility of Romani women, of abortion and mortality rates in that segment of the population, the state of their health, and the broader context of population developments, such as education levels and the degree of segregation experienced. 

According to the results of a census conducted in 1980, there were approximately 200 000 Romani people living in Slovakia (or "persons of gypsy origin"), which represented 4 % of the population. Currently it can be said that the 1980 census is one of the last relatively precise official sources of data based on an ethnic approach, in which the Romani ethnicity of respondents was ascribed by a third party (the census commissioner) on the basis of certain rules. 

The 1991, 2001 and 2001 censuses worked instead with a declaration of Romani nationality by the persons surveyed, which is why the most recent census described only approximately 120 000 persons of Romani nationality in the country. According to forecasting results, however, there should have been approximately 414 000 – 435 000 Romani people in Slovakia in 2010 (depending on the type of forecasting), and by 2030 the lowest estimate of their numbers has the Romani population growing to 547 000 persons, with the upper estimate exceeding 634 000.

If the forecasting scenarios come true, then the weight of the Roma population in 16 years could increase from its current 8 % to an expected 10 to 11.4 %. The scientific work is the result of a collaboration between the Forecasting Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Infostat Research and Demography Center and is the second part of a three-part series of population forecasts. 

Last fall authors Branislav Šprocha, Boris Vaňo (Infostat Research and Demography Center) and Branislav Bleha (Charles University Faculty of Natural Sciences) presented their work entitled "Forecasting of population developments in the districts of the Slovak Republic to 2035". At the end of this year the Forecasting Institute director says the third monograph in the series should come out, focusing on the nature of families and households in Slovakia and their possible development in the future.