Shrinking Regions in a Shrinking Country: The Geography of Population Decline in Lithuania 2001-2011

Ubarevi?ien?, R?ta (), Maarten van Ham and Donatas Burneika ()
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Ubarevi?ien?, R?ta: Lithuanian Social Research Centre
Donatas Burneika: Lithuanian Social Research Centre

No 8026, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Shrinking populations have been gaining increasing attention, especially in post-socialist East and Central European countries. While most studies focus on the population decline of capital cities and their regions, much less is known about the spatial dimension of population decline on the national level. Lithuania is one of the countries which have experienced very high levels of population decline in the last decades. This study uses Lithuanian Census data from the years 2001 and 2011 to get insight into the geography of population change for the whole country. The results show a sharp population decline in Lithuania of 17.2% between 1989 and 2011, with the decrease being more intense during the second decade of the period. The population dropped in most areas, including the main cities, but increased in the regions surrounding these cities. The predictive models show a clear geographical dimension of population decline, but also reveal that population composition and investments play a role in the process of decline.

Keywords: suburbanization; population decline; shrinking regions; post-socialist transition; Lithuania (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J61 P20 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-tra and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Urban Studies Research, 2106, Article 5395379 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/5395379 )

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