A vital element of all social systems is the population, which is, therefore, often the object of decision-making or at least an integral part of it. Such an object can represent both individuals and groups of people, together with their relevant characteristics. Many of the qualitative features of specific individuals or groups of people are significantly related to their basic, demographic features: sex and age in case of an individual or size, sex, and age structure if they concern the whole population. It is consequently the development of the size and age-sex structure of the population that is the main object of demographic analyses and forecast.
The past eight years (2013-2020) for which the detailed official statistics were mostly available have been marked by the decline in the total population size of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During this relatively short period, the population size of the country officially decreased by about 64,000 inhabitants (almost two per cent). However, this decrease was likely much more profound in reality. Estimates based on the mirror statistics suggest that the country lost additional 200,000 inhabitants through emigration in this period (or more than 7% of the total population). This translates into the loss of about 25,000 inhabitants on average annually in this period, and have caused the population age and sex structure to change, where the proportion of children decreased from 22.4% to 19.3% and the proportion of older persons increased from 14.0% to 17.2%.
From the perspective of past population data and population forecast and model projections, it could be concluded that the overall fertility in the country will continue to display low values belonging to the zone labelled in demography as lowest-low fertility.
The mean age of mothers at birth is already relatively high and should stop or significantly slow down soon. Therefore, it is assumed that the decrease or even stagnation of the overall fertility will finish, and a very moderate long-term increase is expected.
