Population Ageing Process and Depopulation Context in Western Balkans

The increasingly pronounced ageing process of the population is followed by a) a relatively low mortalityMortality in all age groups and a stabilization of the mortality rate and b) an increase in mortality rateMortality rates due to the growing proportion of the elderly in the total population. According to the literature, when the number of deaths is higher than the number of live birthsBirth, then a process of depopulation occurs. This chapter aims to extend our knowledge on mortality determinants in the ageing and depopulation context within Western BalkansWestern Balkans countries. Furthermore, our study provides a novel approach into the explanatory determinants that may impact the change of mortality ratesMortality rates. The research work applies an empirical analysis on the annual country level data between a sample of two Western Balkans countries (Albania and Serbia) during 1991–2021 in order to determine the context of influential determinants to mortality rate. An elastic net regularization (ENR)Elastic Net Regularization (ENR) approach is estimated to test the relationship between different variablesVariables on crude mortality rate. ENR analyses reveal that the average value of mortality rate in the two selected Western Balkans countries tend to be affected mostly by proxies for ageing variablesVariables, i.e. MEDIANAGE and life expectancy at birthBirth (LEAB). Results further confirm that demographic changes pose a major challenging factor in determining the average value of mortality rate within these countries. Thus, it was found that net migration rate (NMR) emerged as commonly the most non-significant determinant when it comes to its effect as predictors on values of mortality rateMortality rates. The insights about the relationship of mortality rate with determinants under this study evoke for setting up policy directions for mid- and long-term within these two countries as well as within Western BalkansWestern Balkans.