The paper makes an overview of the existing concepts of childlessness and the measures utilized in social demography that register its prevalence in certain populations and across different regions. Based on existing literature two distinctions of this phenomenon are delineated. Involuntary childlessness or infertility is defined as diminished ability or inability to conceive and have offspring. Infertility is also defined in specific terms as failure to conceive after two years of regular intercourse without contraception. Apart from the popular WHO definition of infertility various concepts that emphasize other substantial aspects of infertility and infecundity that have been used in Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are also discussed. The second concept the paper deals with is voluntary childlessness. The existing definitions of this phenomenon are much more variable. The common aspect in them underlines this phenomenon as a consciously chosen “child-free” life style. The recent growing trends of voluntary childlessness in European countries are shortly described in the paper based on utilization of various indicators reflecting behavioral and attitudinal aspects of voluntary childlessness.

The economically active population (employed and unemployed) is the most important economic group of the population. The best grounded way for it to be predicted is by using matrix models. Predictions about it must be based on predicting the same models for the overall population (economically active and inactive). In them the population of each five-year age passes after five years into the next higher five-year age. The prediction of the economically active population is formed by two interrelated approaches. The first one is through predicted coefficients for economic activity of the overall population according to gender and age. The second approach gives account of the movement of the active population according to gender and age in connection with the number of the deceased, migrating and the artificial increase owing to people who pass from the group of active to the group of the inactive and vice versa.

It is stressed on the fact of population problems provoking policy of birth restriction from the middle of the 20-thy century when the developing countries enormously increased their rate of demographic growth. Till the beginning of the new century the scientists ignored the population reshaping towards increasing of old people share. Having in mind its negative consequences the European Union involved a long term programme of research and population policy of ageing,to which belong the two going on projects funded by the European commission according to its 7-th framework programme. ERA-AGE 2 (European Research Area on Ageing 2) and FUTURAGE (A Roadmap for Ageing Research). They are performed by two consortiums of organizations of European and other countries. The Centre of Population Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is a member of them and a partner-beneficiary of the two projects. The most important activity is the involvement in the ERA-AGE2 of the national data base initiated since 2000 and including the programmes, organizations and publications on ageing as well as its updating. Defining a Road map of ageing, including the issues on the new challenges and topics of research in the next 15 years is the goal of the project FUTURAGE together with preparing of young scholars in the field. The project executive team for Bulgaria succeeded in the first projects production. Of great importance for the policy orientation is the definition of priorities. Of further national research on ageing, obtained by Special consultation conducted in December, 2009 among selected scientists. A continuous objective is the dissemination of the projects issues among the stake holders. The projects tasks in this area are pretty well performed by the Center for Population Studies at the BAS.

This article aims at acquainting the readers in Bulgaria with some basic formulation of thetheories of population and family in the world. The author has no claim for innovation. The assumption is that in our country the problems of demographic transition and its links to the modifications in the family are not well known, and interpred correctly. The aim of the article is to make up for this defficiency.

The article traces the demographic development of the third life cycle – the population aged 60 and over. The fluctuations of the absolute numbers, the fractions and percentages, the sex structures, the age groups, the ethnicity, the place of living and the territorial distribution are analysed. The census data and current demographic statistics demonstrate a process of systematic and fast increase of the population aged 60 and over. Substantial changes are also observed in its structure by age groups. The population percentages of the lower age groups (aged 60-63 and 65-69) decrease while the percentage of the oldest (aged 70 and over) increases reaching almost half of the total old age population. The data on population’s age structures of the three main ethnic groups in Bulgaria show that the ageing process is most notably seen among Bulgarians. The population aged 60-69 is 11.3% of the total population. Among Bulgarians the percent is higher (12.1%), among the Turks it is significantly lower (8.1%) and among Roma hardly reaches 3.6%.

Searching solutions for the unfavourable trends in population reproduction over the last few decades is connected to the studies of international migration as more and more countries in Europe get the opportunity to use external migration as an instrument for achieving positive effects in short-term population development. The raising interest in international migration analysis in Bulgaria needs to be completed by a long-term comparative study of this topic. The basic notions concerning international migrations and used by Eurostat are presented and special attention is paid to work on harmonization of the legal acts aimed at creating of a common data base of accurate and comparable series of statistical data on migration processes. The analysis is based on two types of migration measures: direct and indirect. Dynamics of net migration, emigration and immigration flow size and structures are studied as well as the refugees’ flows and population structure by citizenship. As a group for comparison are selected eight European countries: Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic and Romania. The countries are grouped according to the role of the net migration in the population reproduction over the studied period.

The article analyses the specifics and differences in the participation of women and men in unpaid household labour – a current and significant for the society problem, which is central to the research of the European scientific community. The impact of factors, which determine the quantity of time, necessary for the performance of unpaid household activities, the gender differences according to place of residence, as well as the consequences for women, family and society, is analyzed. The analysis and conclusions are based on the scientific-applied research carried out by the author. In the comparative analysis findings from other research on this topic in Bulgaria and abroad are also used, which makes possible the situation in our country, as well as in other European countries, to be described.

This paper is a critical assessment of the governmental measures, instruments, and national action plans designed to reduce Roma social exclusion in the period after Bulgarian Accession in European Union (2007 - 2009). A special attention on the factors for Roma exclusion is paid in the context of the theories of social exclusion and of ethnicity and nationalism. A definition of the concept of social inclusion is proposed. The author explores how key policy changes in the area of education, labour market, health system, political sphere, housing, minority rights have often been confined to the level of legislation or policy formulation, without being followed by proper implementation (often as a result of lack of adequate budgetary funding). The paper identifies a number of domestic causes of the gap between formal measures for Roma inclusion and their actual implementation. Nationalistic and ethnocentric attitudes and negative stereotypes against Roma, combined with the weakness of the civil society and the lack of public awareness and support for the social inclusion of vulnerable minorities successfully block any political will to implement the policies into practice. Governments rely mainly on international financial support for pilot projects, but even when enough money from the national budget for minorities’ integration are planned, the action plans are not implemented. The lack of adequate monitoring and control over the practical projects and measures leads to bad quality of the services and waste of money and efforts. Minority involvement in the design and implementation of policies is often formal.

The paper aims to present comparative data from several poverty surveys in Bulgaria during 1995-2007; to draw the poverty profiles and their dynamics during Post-Socialism; to present the factors for longterm and mass poverty in the country. A special attention is paid on the poverty of several vulnerable groups: Roma people, single mothers; children in families with several children, unqualified unemployed, wouth unemployment. A brief analysis of some governmental policies to reduce unemployment and poverty is provided.

The aim of this article is to seek the answer to the question whether and how the occupation of political activity in any stage of life (professional and/or voluntary) affects the natural process of individual aging. The object of study – Bulgarian pensioners in the time span from 1990 to 2010. Transition is characterized by low fertility, high mortality, aging population and emigration of young people. It collected heap all negative demographic phenomena that threaten the socio-economic and biological existence of a nation. Demographic problems always entail a range of political ones - the emergence of ageism, gerontophoby. The state pension system in this period is in a crisis. The amount of pension in Bulgaria is among the lowest in Europe. This leads to crisis levels of poverty among older people. The situation of older people in developed countries contrasts sharply with that of Bulgarian pensioners. Among pensioners there are less poor than among any other social group. The largest political group of pensioners during the Bulgarian transition is that of former leading political figures from the totalitarian regime. Another large group of political pensioners is composed by active participants in political processes in the 30’s, 40’s and early 90’s of XX century. Almost all without exception were members of youth political organizations. Their interest in political processes is maintained after withdrawal from active work. This takes the form of NGO’s, interest clubs, celebrations organized. Unlike the majority of pensioners socio-economic situation of political veterans is better than average in the country. Political veterans can be extremely useful in the political organizational work. The myth of lack of energy and inadequacy of the old people should not be relative to that involved in political and public activity. Although we observed some exceptions, in general, occupation of public and political activity in any period of lifetime has a positive influence on the natural aging process, especially in its psychological dimensions. Retain an interest in politics kept longer memory, supports mind, tone, æèçíåëþáèåòî, self-discipline, hygiene habits, social contacts, especially with younger generations.

The article describes the effects of demographic transition (death decline and improvement of human capital) on the value of national income. It focuses on the binding of demographic change to economic transition in terms of increasing and improving the mass of human capital as the theory of endogenous growth prescribes. The significant role of improved social and health conditions on generating stable rates of economic growth is defined both in short and long term. The contradictory effects of demographic variables on the economic growth are analysed using the reproduction cycle. In order to analyse profoundly the effects of increased longevity on macroeconomic stability is presented an alternative view about the negative effects of increased longevity on the whole economy.

This paper’s key questions evolve around the extent to which rational markets prove to be embedded within social structure. Exploring representative quantitative datasets, we show that the role of informal ways in obtaining jobs in Estonia remained as high as it was in 1989. During the period 1989-1999, while the new institutions were still in development, social networks helped coping with the high level of competition in labour market in times of higher unemployment. From 2000 onwards, with institutions already crystallised, the efficiency of social ties in finding a job was higher during the periods of stable growth and somewhat lower during the times of economic hardships. The newly emerged formal institutions for job allocation seem to have given advantages to specific groups in the labour market – most systematically those with higher education. Groups that are more likely obtain their jobs through their social networks are the least competitive ones in the labour market (e.g. Non-Estonians, young people, people with less than higher education), so the social networks have been playing a compensatory role with regards to the inefficiencies of other, missing or unfavourable institutions. We see the use of social networks as an indicator for the possibility and importance of social life outside the markets, and for the subordination of the economic rationale to social.