Vasic: Migration in Kosovo at exodus scale, negative balance - 340,000 inhabitants

Professor of Demography at the Faculty of Geography in Belgrade, Petar Vasic, declared that despite high natural increase, Kosovo is experiencing a population decrease on the scale of an exodus because the negative migration balance amounts to 340,000 people.

"The population of Kosovo and Metohija has decreased by about 140,000 over these 13 years from 2011 to 2024. It now stands at just over 1,600,000. However, naturally, the population is still increasing. That is, the number of births is still greater than the number of deaths, and through natural increase, the population of Kosovo has a surplus of 200,000 for these 13 years. However, considering the total reduction in population, this points to a negative migration balance of minus 340,000 inhabitants, which are practically the dimensions of an exodus," Vasic emphasized to Kosovo Online. He explains that this indicates that the migration rate on an annual level is higher than 15 per thousand.

"For comparison, in the rest of Serbia: central Serbia and Vojvodina, this rate of negative migration balance amounts to about two per thousand per year," Vasic points out.

This demographer underscores economic reasons and family reunification as two key causes of pronounced migration.

"However, fundamentally, it is an economic reason in both cases because when a population has been migrating for decades to certain foreign countries, then kinship networks, or migration networks, are formed, making migration easier for all those who wish to leave Kosovo and Metohija afterward," Vasic states.

Asked to comment on the much smaller number of Serbs in Kosovo than expected, specifically just above two percent of citizens who declared themselves of the Orthodox faith, this expert believes that there is no direct correlation and that the number of Serbs is underestimated.

"I think there isn't a straightforward connection between the number of Orthodox believers and the number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija. I would say that their estimate has significantly underestimated the number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija," Vasic believes. Analysis of statistical data from World War II to today also provides an explanation for the ethnic composition shift between the Albanian and Serbian populations in Kosovo.

"After World War II, Serbian and Albanian women in Kosovo and Metohija were having approximately the same number of children, about six children per woman. Afterward, Serbian women began a fertility transition, i.e., this average number of children decreased, while Albanian women remained at the same level, which even rose to seven by the eighties, while Serbian women reduced to three. If this disparity in birth rates persists over decades, then an ethnic structure re-composition occurs, which has indeed happened in Kosovo and Metohija," Vasic analyzes.

But, he points out another phenomenon.

"At this moment, the Serbian nationality population in Kosovo and Metohija records significantly higher birth rates compared to the Serbian population in the rest of our country. Essentially, this is not so surprising when a population in a status of immediate threat reacts in such a way concerning birth rates," Vasic emphasizes.