For more than seven decades the scope and pace of depopulation of rural areas in Bulgaria have been describing as one of the most significant social evils and obstacles before the development of the country. The pace of depopulation of villages in Bulgaria in the second half of 20-th century is among the highest in the world. Although serious damages that rural depopulation has been causing to the country and to the chances of its rural areas for positive demographic, social and economic development, there are not many studies dedicated to the problems and consequences from rural flight leading to the desertification of vast no urbanized areas. In the paper below we are representing a new approach towards studying of the pace of rural depopulation. The focus is put on comparing rates of depopulation and its spatial expansion by tracking the dynamics in the number of so called “authentic” rural population. The shortest explanation of this term is that it is the population that has always been rural for the entire period of study.

The aim of this article is to do a short review and analysis of the scientific publications of Bulgarian and foreign researchers who deal with the problems of the quality of labour force as well as with the problem of education as a defining characteristic of the economically active population. The education of the economically active population is now considered by economic theories to be essential factor for the economic development of a particular country. At the same time, it is also the main indicator for the quality of labour force. This article is aimed at specifying the concept of the essence and the place of the educational level of the economically active population within the complex economic system of the modern society and at showing the great number of mutual relations between the economic system and the processes that go in the society in the current stage of its development.

The article outlines the significance of the Greek periodicals as a source of demographic history of the Bulgarian lands during the Revival. This significance is revealed by the survey and the analysis of the documents on the migration of the population that inhabited studied region in the Revival, that were published on the pages of the Greek newspaper “Ανατολικός Αστήρ” (“Anatolikos astir”), which was issued in Istanbul from 1861 to 1877. This newspaper is one of the most long standing periodicals that were issued in the capital city the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, and very popular in the Bulgarian lands under Ottoman rule.

The main goal of this study is to analyse and summarise the materials published in the “Ανατολικός Αστήρ” newspaper that refer to the demographic politics implemented on the Bulgarian territories and towards their inhabitants during the Renaissance. We observed that these materials encompass all aspects of the investigated problem. Although the materials are unevenly distributed both in time and in regards to the different regions of the investigated territory, as a whole they cover the complete time range as well as the complete territory we investigated. This allows us to determine the importance of the “Ανατολικός Αστήρ” newspaper as an information source about the historical development of the demographic politics implemented on the Bulgarian territories.

In the context of long-term and significant reduction in Bulgaria’s economically active population, educational structure’s dynamics has become more and more significant. This article highlights the major results from the forecast for the economically active population’s development according to the educational level in Bulgaria to 2021. Since there is no average-term demographic forecast to 2021 or an official long-term demographic forecast, National Statistical Institute’s demographic scenario for Bulgaria covering the period to 2060 (the realistic variant) has been used to develop this forecast. Likewise, no forecast on the changes in population according to the education level has been published for the period considered. The economic activity rates have been projected for four categories of education: high-educated, those who graduated from vocational or secondary schools, low-educated or functionally uneducated. The hypotheses were based in reliance on the analytical results and conclusions made for the period 1985-2012 and more special attention was paid to the last eight years of the reference period, i.e. the 2005-2012 period. The reference information on the economically active population by sex, age and education categories was calculated according to data extracted from NSI publications on the censuses conducted in the country in 1985, 1992, 2001 and 2011, and based on annual data of the „Employment and Unemployment“ Labour Force Survey for the period 2001-2012.

The aim of the study is to ascertain the suicide risk associated with some socio-demographic factors in male psychiatric inpatients – a population at a high risk of suicidal behaviour. 164 hospitalized psychiatric patients were evaluated according to certain clinical characteristics, socio-demographic indicators and results from psychometric scales. Bivariate and multi-factor analyses were applied. According to the obtained results patients, who don’t cohabit with a partner, show a higher level of suicide risk (total score from the A. Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation – SSI) and have attempted suicide more often. The lack of a partner is an independent predictor in both multi-factor models. Those living in a large town are more hopeless (total score from the A. Beck Hopelessness Scale – BHS) and with a higher suicide risk (SSI) than those living in a village. As the examined patients’ age increases so does the depression’s severity (total score from the Montgomery – Åsberg Depression Rating Scale – MADRS), but not the suicide risk. These results may be useful when assessing suicide risk.

The aim of this study is to clarify the building of concept in the Bulgarian legislation in the period 1878-1912 in regard of one of the main directions of demographic policy, the one linked to the birth rate of the country, in particular on the combining of opportunities of work with the population reproduction. The main conclusion of the analysis is that it was mainly oriented to women and children. At the end of the period studied, an aspiration of Bulgarian law-makers to extend this policy towards different types of work and different sectors of Bulgaria‘s economy is ascertained.