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The long-term decrease in the total number of inhabitants, the aging of the population and the social marginalization of rural areas have caused negative demographic trends in almost the entire Republic of Croatia (RO). The concepts of extinction, demographic depression and demographic endangerment are most often associated with the recent phenomenon of demographic decline and economic decline of settlements. This paper presents the results of the comparison of the demographic depression index (IDD) for the Republic of Croatia in the inter-census period 2011-2021. Standardization was done on a scale from 1 to 5, where each class had an associated meaning: (5) extremely vital area ; (4) vital area ; (3) area on the edge of demographic depression ; (2) less depressed area ; (1) extremely depressed area. A special class (0) represented the extinct settlements. The criteria class boundaries were defined using the decision-maker method. The average IDD value of all settlements in the Republic of Croatia for 2011 was 2.22 (depressed/edge of demographic depression), while for 2021 it was 2.20. According to data for 2011 and 2021, the largest share of settlements belonged to the class of depressed area (2). As expected, the smallest share of settlements belonged to the class of extremely vital area (5). If an absolute change of settlements is observed, the largest increase was recorded in the class of depressed area (2), and the largest decrease was determined for the class edge of demographic depression (3). However, class (3) was transformed into a demographically more depressed area. The classes vital (4) and extremely vital space (5) did not register an increase. IDD can be applied in the analysis, i.e. recognition of the demographic resources of an area with the aim of reducing unequal socio-economic development, i.e. spatial imbalance. |
