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Article: Bulgaria's population implosion.
- Article from:
- East European Quarterly
- Article date:
- March 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 East European Quarterly. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Introduction
As a group, the countries of East-Central Europe now have the lowest fertility rate in the world (Council of Europe 2004). (1) Partly as a result of the demographic trends of its eastern half, average life expectancy at birth in all of Europe has declined for the first time since World War Two (UN/ECE 1999. (2) Falling longevity is the direct outcome of East-Central Europe's continuing social and economic problems, such as stagnant living standards, low real incomes, high poverty rates, unemployment, growing social inequality, environmental pollution, and a healthcare crisis that has resulted in untreated disease and early death, especially among the ...