By: Dr Metod Berlec
Although we are in the middle of summer, it is right that I also point out here the catastrophic demographic situation of the Slovenian nation, which prof. Dr Matjaž Gams warned about in an interview for the previous issue of Demokracija.
According to him, due to low fertility in Slovenia – which in recent years has been only 1.5 children per woman of reproductive age, while it would need to be at least 2.1 for normal population replacement – approximately 1,500 children “lack” every three months. “This is comparable to losing one Titanic of children every quarter. So, every three months one global catastrophe in Slovenia… This deficit has been accumulating for decades, and we keep sweeping these Titanics under the rug.” Based on demographic projections, he concludes that there is a danger that, under current trends and without major changes, the Slovenian nation could “biologically fade out in about 200 years, and within 100 years dilute into a real minority in its own country.” Currently, the main concerns are rapid population ageing and structural labour shortages, which manifest in the import of foreign workers (recently especially from Asia) – something visible at every step if one takes even a short walk through Ljubljana.
Slovenia has been among the countries with the lowest fertility in Europe for more than a decade. The total fertility rate has fallen to a level far below the threshold of simple population replacement. This means that each generation of Slovenians is smaller than the previous one. The number of births is now so low that Slovenia is shrinking demographically, while the share of older people is rapidly increasing. The result is a structural demographic winter, no longer just a statistical figure but an existential alarm. Demographic indicators reveal that Slovenian society has entered a spiral that is difficult to reverse: fewer young people mean fewer families, and fewer families mean even fewer births. At the same time, pressure on the pension system, healthcare, and the entire social infrastructure increases. A country with an ever‑smaller number of working‑age people cannot maintain the standard its citizens expect. If trends continue, Slovenia will in a few decades become a country with a significantly smaller, older, and economically weaker population. This is no longer a hypothetical danger but a real projection, as prof. Dr Gams also warns. A nation that does not secure its own biological future loses cultural, political, and economic sovereignty. Demographic emptiness is always filled – if not with one’s own children, then with migration, which in the long term changes the identity of the country and brings numerous challenges associated with a multi‑ethnic and multicultural society. Thus, we face the threat that Slovenians may become a minority in their own national state, and in the long run even literally disappear as a nation.
Slovenia urgently needs a demographic turnaround. It needs a serious plan for demographic renewal of the Slovenian nation, which I myself wrote about in the volume Consensus for a Historic Moment – The Path to Victory and the Tasks of the New Government; from family policies that genuinely support young families, to tax relief, housing accessibility, and a social climate that once again values parenthood and families with more children. Without a strategic shift in this area, everything else is meaningless.