Ethnic Diversity of Population in Vojvodina at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Abstract

Vojvodina, an autonomous province in the Republic of Serbia, is ethnically one of the most heterogeneous regions of Europe and therefore represents an inexhaustible subject of research. There are more than 20 ethnic groups living in Vojvodina. According to the most recent 2011 census, there are 1,931,809 people living in Vojvodina and the Serbs make the largest ethnic group, 66.7% of the total population. Hungarians make 13.0% of the total population of Vojvodina and with a somewhat smaller proportion come the Slovaks, Croats, Rroma and Rromanians. In the period between the two censuses the reduction in the number of members of all ethnic groups was recorded and the only ethnic group that increased in number was the Rroma. Different socio-economic and demographic trends have had a great influence on the reduction of the share of members of almost all ethnic groups in the total population of Vojvodina in the last decades. First of all, it was influenced by forced migrations in the nineties of the previous century caused by the war on the territory of former Yugoslavia and its disintegration, a period of transition. The goal of this paper is to analyze the ethnic structure of the population in Vojvodina, as well as the factors which have had the most significant impact on the changes in the structure at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. The importance of this analysis is reflected in better understanding of the status of different ethnic groups in Vojvodina and a better quality of their inclusion in social, cultural and political life.