This paper aims at presenting national representative survey data on people’s attitudes toward family values with a special focus on the data from the 2018 survey “Attitudes toward fertility, family policies and vulnerable communities”. The grounds of family policy with a special emphasis on positive parenting support policy are outlined in the second part of the paper. Directions to effective family policy in Bulgaria are discussed; part of them are family and family life rehabilitation against its alternatives: free-of-family-life and free-of-children-life.

The aim of the study is to explore the social differences in the transition to first and second birth of women in reproductive age in Bulgaria. The influence of different socio-demographic characteristics of women such as age, education, ethnicity, family status is tested by the means of event history analysis. The results of the transition to first and second birth reveal that the effect of education is negative – highly educated women have lower transition rates to parenthood compared to lowly educated women. Women with Bulgarian ethnic origin have lower transition rates compared to women from ethnic minorities. There is significant process of postponement of the transition to parenthood which is most pronounced among highly educated women with Bulgarian ethnic origin.

The study evidences the need to develop long-term care in Bulgaria based on of analysis of the demographic situation in the country and the necessary social transformations. The compensatory role of public policies supporting people who need long-term care and their families is crucial in the context of an extremely aged population, increased and increasing proportions of the oldest people and lonely older people, a specific structure of migration flows, a workforce reduction and necessity of higher employment. I propose a methodologically grounded choice of long-term care definition, criteria and indicators for LTC needs estimation. The assessment of the needs and the coverage of social and health services shows that Bulgaria belongs to the group of countries in Europe with the least developed public services in the long-term care mix. The assessments in the study could help to plan long-term care policies in Bulgaria.

The article examines the different stages in the development of the immigration policy of Bulgaria after 1989 regarding the Bulgarians abroad. The different scenarios of the replacement migration in Bulgaria are also examined in accordance with the methodology developed by the United Nations Population Division for its calculation. The migrant potential of the Bulgarian diaspora is compared with the volume of the replacement migration. It is concluded that the number of the Bulgarian diaspora is not sufficient to allow for permanent resolving the existing problems in the demographic reproduction. For this reason, the resettlement of Bulgarians from abroad in Bulgaria can only be an instrument for short- and medium-term impact on demographic processes.

Relations and dependencies between the economic development and migration processes are the subject of this article, i.e. emigration and immigration, as well as their influence on the demographic development of the Bulgarian population in the last three decades. The ongoing processes in this area are addressed from the point of view of the system approach, migration in the world and the development of free movement of citizens in the EU, within the context of the new migration situation in the world in the recent years. Attention is paid to issues of significant influence on the nowadays migration of the population, the development of economies, demographic processes and professional careers, processes and factors that have not only a direct but also indirect influence on migration and on population and economy, respectively. A special focus in the article is given to the development and interruption of the professional trajectory and the migration of women. Processes and policies that have an indirect influence are also outlined, but in practice they have a significant effect on migration processes and the development of the population and the economy.

The young people of working age with basic or lower education in Bulgaria are characterized by relatively low levels of participation in education and training as a key tool for improving employability. In the context of low economic activity of the persons in this group, the issue of identifying barriers to their participation in education and training becomes the basis for formulating proposals for improvement of policies and measures in this field in the future. The main objective of this article is to systematize and present results of focus-groupdiscussions to study obstacles to participation in education and training of young people of working age with basic and lower education. The focus groups included 164 representatives of stakeholders (municipal and regional administrations, Regional Education Office, employers’ and trade union organizations, Labor Office Directorate, etc.) in 10 districts of Bulgaria. Theresults show that participation in education and training of young people of working age withbasic and lower education is hampered by a variety of obstacles that are specific to this youthgroup: low motivation, deficits in cognitive skills, undeclared employment and etc. The focusgroup discussions also reveal an additional emphasis on the social role of individuals in thisyouth group as parents and as a component of a family environment that has the potentialto“guarantee” a future influx of new additions to low-educated population groups. The sespecificities should be taken into account both in future research in this field and informulatingeffective policies and measures to encourage participation in education and training of youngpeople of working age with basic and lower education.

The regional peculiarities in the demographic and socio-economic development of Bulgaria are the basis of unequal processes and tendencies in the formation of the local contingents of the labour resources and the labour force. Based on data from the population and housing census in 2011, an attempt was made to reveal the territorial differences in the demographic and social and labour-economic characteristics of the population in working, under-occupational and retirement age. The aim of the study is to reveal the regions with the most serious problems in reproduction, education, vocational training and ultimately the efficient use of their labour resources. Four clusters have been identified using multidimensional statistical analysis methods, covering provinces with similar characteristics of labour resources and workforce. Based on this typology an analysis of the problems of efficient use of available labour resources has been made and some recommendation has been proposed in order to conduct more effective training and retraining measures in the regions and provinces with the most serious problems in the functioning of local labour markets.

This study еxamines the internal migration of the native-born population in Bulgaria between 1910 and 1934. Its volume and dynamics, gender and ethnic specificities, distance, directions and spatial orientation are revealed by quantitative analysis of the statistical information on the birth place of the native-born population in Bulgaria, drawn from the four censuses realized during the period under consideration. Due to the lack of current statistics on settlements and displacements, they are an indispensable historical source of spatial mobility within the country.

This article introduces the Sofia Students’ Temperance Society (STS) in the context of the struggle for reduction of the mortality of the Bulgarian population in the years between the two world wars. In this connection the ideas, organization and popularity of the STS are being investigated, as well as its impact on the reduction of the mortality of the population in the country. The research is based predominantly on information taken out of memories the STS activists, from materials of the society itself as well as on data collected in the archives of the Ministry of Interior.