The Roma have been settled in the Balkans for centuries, with the first recorded mention in the thirteenth century. The former Yugoslavia had one of the largest Roma populations in Eastern Europe, with an estimated 850.000 in the 1980s. The policy of the Yugoslav socialist government was to assimilate Roma, thus considerable efforts were made to help them to improve their economic, social and cultural lot. In the early 1980s, the Yugoslav Roma were recognized as a national minority and given an equal constitutional standing with other minorities. The Roma seemingly became assimilated, as they mostly adopted the culture, language, and religion of the majority populations in the areas where they lived. However, their position in the Yugoslav federation was more a case of somewhere between: not completely included into the working class but not completely excluded. Following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and transition to a market economy, the Roma have been greatly affected by disadvantages and difficulties. In the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, with their failing economies, widespread unemployment and uncertain social safety nets, the largely unskilled and poorly educated Roma are unable to compete with other populations. Presently, in all the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, the position/situation of the Roma is more-or-less the same: the Roma population is significantly younger than the non-Roma majorities, and they suffer from higher infant and child mortality and lack of education and skills.