USA Lost 40 Million People in 20 Years (1990-2010)

[Dr Strangelove]

WHy are you blaming the popultaion decline on communism? The population was gaining steadily under communism, the drop began after the country was no longer communist. The first years after the fall of communism were very hard for many people in Eastern Europe, many people lost their means of support. Some that did not die outright may have been weakened and died later. Also, that 16% drop in population may be why the economy perked up, the unemployed left.

Weren't there some ethnic conflicts with Bulgarian muslims? Maybe the muslims left?

[Ben Kenobi]

Strangelove:

The problem is endemic across the former soviet bloc. They have a toxic combination of high emigration, high death rates and low birthrates.

Communism was good at keeping people in, that's sorta why they built a wall...

[Sir Og]

Actually, the USA did not lose so many people. The thread title is to give you
a feel for the scale of this loss. It actually happened in Bulgaria in the same
period. In 20 years population declined from ~9 million to ~7.5 million, a drop
of ~16%. It's the same as if the USA lost ~40 million in the same period.


(Image source: http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogs...-bulgaria.html)

Some interesting things to note about this:

1. There were no wars, disease or natural disasters in Bulgaria. It just... happened.
2. The country is functioning normally
3. Standard of living is increasing (not just GDP/capita, but also GDP)
4. There is no need for large scale immigration
5. The country has been running a fiscal surplus prior to the crisis

What communism does to a country, eh? The pattern of population decrease is
observable elsewhere in the former communist states of Eastern Europe. An interesting
comparison is with Croatia. We had a bloody war in the 1990's, as a result many died
and many more fled or were displaced. With all that, our population decreased only 7% or
so. Why?

Our form of communism was much milder.

1) Your(Yugo) wars had very negative impact on our economy. No investments due to the insecurity and poor trade with Europe for a lot of years.

Most of the "missing" people are in Spain, Italy and Greece where they work low cost jobs. Most of them would come back to Bulgaria if they can get a job that pays ~60% of what they get now abroad. Unfortunately this is not going to happen very soon.

Ultimately these missing people are not result of "communism" but of free movement of labour. There are people that are coming back and there will be a lot more people that will come back after they retire or when the wages improve in Bulgaria.

The birthrate was very low during the years when the economy was contracting, but in the last few years it has increased and is above the average for the developed countries. IIRC

[Sir Og]

WHy are you blaming the popultaion decline on communism? The population was gaining steadily under communism, the drop began after the country was no longer communist. The first years after the fall of communism were very hard for many people in Eastern Europe, many people lost their means of support. Some that did not die outright may have been weakened and died later. Also, that 16% drop in population may be why the economy perked up, the unemployed left.

Weren't there some ethnic conflicts with Bulgarian muslims? Maybe the muslims left?

There were no problems with the muslims in the last 20 years. There was a forced name change for Bulgarian muslims in the last decade of communism and that is responsible for the flat growth in the 80s when a lot of muslims moved to Turkey.

[VetLegion]

1) Your(Yugo) wars had very negative impact on our economy. No investments due to the insecurity and poor trade with Europe for a lot of years.

Rampant corruption and daily mafia-style executions had nothing to do with it?

[Sir Og]

Rampant corruptions doesnt help the economy either.
All I am saying is that the wars had negative impact not that they were the only factor.