“Parents ask me when we give them grandchildren, but they had to help us with money last month. How do you raise a child in these conditions?” The Romanian demographic paradox: more prosperity, but fewer children

On a winter morning, in a new block of flats in the south of Bucharest, Elena Popescu opens her laptop before 8 o'clock. She works in IT, earns above the economy average and lives in a modern apartment with underfloor heating and large windows. When she thinks about the idea of ​​having a baby, she doesn't see cribs or clothes. See installments and financial obligations.

“My grandmother had four children my age in a two-room apartment with no running hot water,” she says. “But she knew she'd have that apartment forever, the job forever, the community forever. We have more money than her, but less certainty about anything to do with the future.”

Elena is 32 years old. Romania, on the other hand, seems to have aged much faster.

In 2025, approximately 145,000 children were born, a historic low of the last century. In 1912, over 520,000 children were born. Even during the war years or immediately after, the birth rate fell below 200,000 only in exceptional cases. Today, decline is no longer an exception, but a statistical rule.

Silent but steady collapse

In 2024, Romania recorded 148,900 live births, 53,600 less than in 2014 and 15,100 less than in 2023. The birth rate dropped to 6.8 live births per 1,000 inhabitants, after a continuous decline that started in 2020. It is one of the lowest values in the Union European.

The birth rate is below the level needed to replace the generations, and the mortality rate, in relative increase, further presses the demographic balance. Romania is entering a phase of structural demographic contraction.

The President of the National Institute of Statistics, Tudorel Andrei, describes the dimension of the phenomenon:

“The rate of decline in the under-one-year-old population between the last censuses is nearly 20%, the fastest rate of any age group.”

At the 2021 census, Romania's population was 5.3% smaller than in 2011. The number of children under 10 years decreased by almost 6%, and the share of the population over 65 years old rose to around 20%.

Mihai and the rental generation

450 kilometers away, in Cluj-Napoca, Mihai Constantinescu is 29 years old and has two jobs. By day he works as a marketing manager, by night he does graphic design for outside clients. His girlfriend teaches at a private school. Together, they earn enough for rent, but not for a down payment on an apartment.

“We would like to have children someday,” says Mihai. “But where? This place barely fits us. My parents always ask when we give them some grandchildren, but they had to help us financially with last month's rent. How do you raise a child in these conditions? What are you giving them in life?”

Mihai's question appears repeatedly in sociological research: we can make a child, but where do we raise it? Housing has also become a brake on fertility. High prices, 30-year mortgages, hard-to-get down payments and dependence on parental support are pushing the decision to have children later and later.

Young Romanians stay with their parents until they are 30 years old. Adrian is 24 years old, he works for a multinational in IT, and although he earns well, he still lives with his parents in a 3-room apartment in Bucharest.

He doesn't have big expenses, his mother cooks for him and washes his clothes. He says he wants to raise money to buy an apartment, but at the same time, “who knows, maybe I'll leave the country at some point.” Moreover, almost half of the young Romanians declare their intention to emigrate. In 2023, the record of the last 10 years was recorded for the final departure of young people from the country.

He does not want to take out a home loan, especially in this economically uncertain period. He hopes that apartment prices will drop further, that the real estate market will fall. No one rushes him.

Like him, there are many other fellow citizens who delay leaving home for up to 30 years for men, and 25.4 years for women, according to Eurostat data. An explanation can also be the fact that they marry earlier.

However, in other countries men leave later. For example, Croatians leave their parental home at 34.7 years, Bulgarians at 32.3 years, Greeks at 32.1 years as well as Slovaks, and Spaniards and Portuguese at 31 years and 30.4 years respectively. At the opposite pole are those from Sweden at 21.7 years, Denmark – 22 years, Finland – 22.1 years.

When predictability disappears

The Romanian paradox is that the collapse of the birth rate comes in a period of relative prosperity. In the last 20 years, GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity has multiplied several times. And yet, there are fewer children than in the 90s.

In the past, housing was inherited or assigned, work was low-paid but stable, and the extended family functioned as a safety net. The baby was coming before everything was settled.

Today, the baby comes after you solve everything: housing, two stable incomes, savings, emotional balance, the certainty that “you can handle it”. The result is procrastination.

As the BNR notes: “The aging phenomenon has intensified, with the number of elderly people per 100 young people increasing to 132.4 in January 2025 compared to 126.8 a year ago. The average age of the population increased to 42.9 years, 0.4 years more than in January 2024. The reduction in the share of the working-age population causes a shortage of workers qualified, which negatively affects productivity and the ability of firms to expand”.

Demographic effects are putting pressure on pension spending, which is forecast to exceed 10% of GDP in the next 30 years, while contributions to the public pension system will decline to around 5.5% of GDP in the next 15 years and remain at this level until the end of the projection horizon (2070)”.

The disappearing village

In a village in the south of Teleorman County, Maria Apreotesei, 41 years old, is closing the primary school where she taught for 15 years. Not because it was officially abolished, but because it no longer has students. The last preparatory class had three children.

An OECD report shows that in many municipalities there are no longer enough students for a first grade or for entire cycles, so schools can no longer function and children are transported to neighboring towns.

Teleorman has lost almost 15% of its population in a decade. Oltul, Hunedoara, Brăila, Caraș-Severin – all have double-digit decreases. Only three counties – Ilfov, Bistrita-Năsăud and Suceava – increased. In the rest, Romania is becoming rarer, almost locality by locality.

In parallel, emigration continues to empty precisely the childbearing age segment. Over 1.1 million Romanians live in Italy, another hundreds of thousands in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. Many have children there. Statistically, Romania no longer sees them.

The economic cost of absenteeism

Effects are no longer abstract. The ratio of the elderly to the young reached 132.4 per 100 in January 2025, and the median age of the population is 42.9 years. The labor market is starting to feel labor shortages, especially in IT, science and engineering.

Romania is not an exception. According to the United Nations, there is an 80% chance that global population will peak this century and then decline. China, Germany, Japan have already reached there.

The question that remains

Back in Bucharest, Elena Popescu says that maybe she will have a child in about five years. “If we can buy the apartment. If the jobs stay stable. If the planets align.”

For Romania, the stake is not only if Elena's planets will align. What if every young couple could afford to wait for everything to be settled before bringing the next generation into the world.

Because, in silence, biological time flows faster than political or economic time.