Ministers' Deputies
CM Documents



689 Meeting, 24[-25] November 1999
6 Social and economic questions

6.1 EUROPEAN POPULATION COMMITTEE (CDPO)
The demographic characteristics of national minorities in certain European States

CM(99)138 Addendum 1 27 October 1999

The studies appearing in this two volume publication break new ground in offering the first systematic statement of the contemporary demographic characteristics of major national minorities of Europe. In recognition of their geographical distribution, the coverage is inevitably biased towards Central and Eastern Europe. Before democratisation, investigation of the indigenous minorities of this region was very sensitive and in some cases virtually a taboo subject. As a consequence, there is relatively little outside awareness of the detailed situation and one of the primary aims of this publication is the rectification, at least in part, of this deficiency.

This does not mean that the sensitivities surrounding minority populations have disappeared, touching as they do on historical precedence and territorial rights. Even at the end of the 20th century, minority/majority relations remain a potent source of actual and potential conflict among different peoples. It is for this reason that the emphasis is on establishing the demographic facts - the size of minority populations, their geographical distribution, their vital rates in terms of births and deaths, migration patterns and projected future numbers.

Nevertheless, the value of the publication goes beyond the purely demographic. It should, for instance, contribute to the settlement of the often contentious issue of minority population size and growth rates. Respective estimates derived from minority as opposed to official sources may differ widely. Since this is the sort of disagreement that readily filters into the political arena, where it may be used to support territorial claims or generate perceptions of preferential treatment, bias and so on, it is important that objective and authoritative population figures are available that all sides can accept. It follows from this that demography is a basic starting point for the implementation of any civil rights agenda designed to reduce minority/majority tensions.

An important factor governing the selection of minorities for inclusion in the two volumes was the consent and co-operation of the governments concerned. This explains what at first glance might appear as an imbalance in the choice of minorities for investigation. Hence, the situation in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia is considered at some length, the emphasis being on the 2.4 million Hungarians living beyond the borders of Hungary in the two neighbouring countries, together with the Roma/Gypsies. However, there is no treatment of the former Yugoslav Federation and its successor states, although demographic contradictions contributed to its break-up and the question of minorities is still a pressing issue. Similarly, Estonia with its difficult situation with regard to old minorities and more recent immigrants from the Soviet period is included, but not Latvia and Lithuania where similar situations prevail. Bulgaria with its Turkish minority, plus a review of the situation of the Roma/Gypsy population throughout the region, completes the treatment of Central and Eastern Europe.

The position in other parts of Europe is rather different. The political debate is generally focused on recent immigrants - North Africans in France, New Commonwealth citizens in Britain, Turks in Germany and so on - who were explicitly excluded from the investigation. Coverage does, however, include the demographic setting to majority Protestant / minority Catholic relationships in Northern Ireland. These have been the source of periodic bouts of violent conflict throughout this century and the current willingness of the two sides to accommodate their differences is at least, in part, a function of the growing strength of the Catholic electorate that derives from the relatively rapid demographic increase of the group.

The case of Switzerland is examined because of the unique political and constitutional arrangements that exist to defuse linguistic and religious tensions within this multi-group federal state. The principle of territoriality ensures that, while the national languages remain dominant in traditional areas, the federal state is multilingual. The freedom of religious expression, constitutional safeguards and the devolution of powers to the cantons have helped defuse the religious tensions which were present in the 19th century. A comparative survey of the demographic characteristics of the Swedish-speaking minority in relation to the majority community in Finland completes the discussion.

This overview falls into five main parts. The first part summarises the background to the project and includes concepts and definitions. The second part is devoted to the data sources relating to the demography of minority populations. Although census information is relatively extensive, there are considerable problems in its usage and indirect methods of population estimation, particularly in the apprising of vital rates, may have a role to play here. The demographic patterns displayed by minorities are summarised in part three. Part four is devoted to the question of explanation while the future prospects of minorities are examined in part five.

The concepts, definitions and terminology associated with minority populations vary across Europe depending upon the circumstances of individual countries. Where the nation state has a strong tradition, the process of population integration is far advanced. Although regional and cultural differences may persist and be strongly felt, the coming together of different peoples on the basis of equality of status is the hall-mark of such countries. The precise form that this takes is a function of history. In France, for example, it occurs within the framework of a centralised unitary state, whereas Switzerland, with its greater heterogeneity of peoples, has evolved a looser federal structure. The essential point, however, is that the concept of national minorities, as it was developed in Central and Eastern Europe, has no real meaning in the particular circumstances of these countries.

The former territories of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian/Soviet empires in South-central, South-eastern and Eastern Europe were multi-national conglomerations. In this situation, the concept of national group, and consequently national minority, acquired a particular relevance and meaning. The association between national group and territory was, however, relatively loose and when the subject nations eventually re-emerged after the retreat of the empire, they did so as independent states comprised of an amalgam of majority and minority populations.

For example, after the First World War, Slovakia (Czechoslovakia up to 1993) and Romania came into being characterised by the complex intermingling of different national groups. In each case, the majority of the population identified with the nation and the state, but along side were other national groups that found themselves in a minority position even though they were significant demographically. It is in this context that the concept of nationality has arisen. It applies to the Hungarian minority in Romania and Slovakia, the Romanian and Slovak minorities in Hungary and so on.

However, adopting a specific and narrow definition of national group, and hence national minority, would have unduly restricted the analytical scope of the publication. Hence, a more general interpretation was adopted closer to the concepts used by the Council of Europe's legal instruments for the protection of national minorities. Accordingly, minorities are identified on the basis of linguistic, ethnic, national and/or religious differences with the majority population. The definition also embraces an additional criterion that a minority should have been sufficiently long settled to have become firmly established in its country of residence. It is on this basis that the new immigrant populations of Western Europe and the 'newly' settled Russian speakers in the treatment of Estonia have been excluded from consideration. (Readers are referred to Haug’s Introduction to Volume 1 of this Report for a more comprehensive discussion of these issues).

The expressions national group and ethnic group are elusive concepts and neither term is used in a consistent manner by the countries under study. For instance, Bulgaria uses the term ethnic group when referring to Bulgarian Turks, even though this population is no different to the national groups in other countries of South East Europe. Lastly, one ethnic or national group stands a little apart from the others and that is the Roma/Gypsies. Although a long-established group originating in India, they have no country to call their own, but they are virtually ubiquitous throughout the continent, especially in Central and South-eastern Europe.

Whatever the specific focus, demographic investigation is dependent upon the availability of statistical information about the size, growth and structure of populations. While this poses no problem for populations in aggregate, the analysis of sub-groups may be more problematic. In the case of minorities, one would naturally look to the census for details of population size and structure, to vital registration for information about births, deaths, marriages and divorces and probably to some combination of the two for migration data. In an ideal world, therefore, demographic statistics should be categorised in such a way as to facilitate the identification of de facto minorities and, whether census-based, or derived from vital statistics or population registers, tabulated according to these categories. Categorisation should be by self declaration and should occur in the context of a neutral social and political environment so as to avoid distortions arising from extraneous pressures, whether overt or perceived.

It goes without saying that the reality strays a long way from this ideal world. Although the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that recognise the concept of national group/ethnic nationality come closest to it, reference to the survey of statistical sources compiled by Courbage (see chapter II of volume 1) would suggest that the number producing a broad range of demographic data by national group is fairly limited. It may be noted, however, that the survey results may well understate the real position because six countries that were part of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, where it has been traditional to collect such data, failed to reply to the questionnaire. None the less, it is the case that most of the countries included in the survey do not acknowledge the national group for statistical purposes. This is for political and/or constitutional reasons, but also because the national group is not considered a priority topic.

In the majority of European countries, therefore, national minorities (in the large sense defined above) are identified through other indicators: religion, language (mother tongue or habitual language), citizenship/nationality and place of birth are the most obvious of them. Even then there are still considerable drawbacks. For one thing, in many European countries religion and/or language is not a matter of census inquiry. For another, many of the countries inquiring into language or religion also collect information by ethnic or national group, thereby creating considerable overlap, although cross checking for consistency then becomes possible.

The use of religion and language to identify established minorities is often based on the assumption of their congruence with national groups, but as the example of Romania demonstrates the various relationships are not necessarily consistent. Hence, religion and language are equally good at distinguishing the Hungarian and German minorities from the Romanian majority (Hungarians and Germans are predominantly Protestant or Catholic whereas Romanians are mainly Orthodox) but religion by itself cannot be used to differentiate Hungarians from Germans. Similarly, whereas language separates the Ukrainian from the Romanian majority, religion does not in so far as the Orthodox faith predominates in each group. Additionally, there may be circumstances, as in Hungary, where individual members of minorities may have lost their cultural language and, on this criterion, are therefore indistinguishable from the majority community, but still identify with their national group.

The use of religion as an indicator is illustrated by reference to Northern Ireland and Switzerland. In Irish censuses religion has served as a means of distinguishing between a British-leaning Protestant population and the more nationalistic Catholic population since 1861. Although this has long ceased to have any relevance in what is now the Irish Republic, it remains the primary differentiator between the two groups in Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is probable that the importance of monitoring religion will increase rather than diminish in Northern Ireland in future because the communal breakdown of the population defined in terms of perceived religion is now taken as the yardstick for the allocation of resources and the 'fair' distribution of employment.

Swiss census data on religion also go back to the middle of the last century. Unlike Northern Ireland, however, vital registration data are also available by denomination for much of the same time period and can be combined with census information to provide a picture of the demographic dynamics of the Catholic and Protestant populations of the country since 1871. As such the differential onset and completion of demographic transition in each group is clearly illuminated.

The use of language is exemplified with reference to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. Up to and including 1970, census data constituted the means for categorising this group, but since then it has been based on the national population register. As a result, the dynamics of Swedish speakers vis a vis the population at large are known in considerable detail, including comparative levels of fertility, mortality and migration. Finland is, in fact, one of the few European states where such analysis is possible because no other country incorporates language data in its registers of vital events.

It is apparent from the preceding discussion that we are in a better position to identify the numerical size and composition of minorities than the dynamics of change in view of the relatively good availability of census information as compared with vital registration data. On occasions, it may therefore be necessary to resort to indirect methods for the estimation of birth and death rates. This may involve drawing inferences from census age structures using techniques like model life-tables, stable population analysis and back-projection techniques as may be seen in the Bulgarian case study.

Ecological methods based on observed spatial associations may also prove useful as may non-governmental sources of information and special surveys. For instance, the analysis of the fertility and mortality differentials among the four official language groups and combined religious-linguistic groups (German Protestant, German Catholic and so on) in the Swiss report is based on an ecological procedure that groups the country's cantons or communes according to type. Regarding non-governmental sources of information, ecclesiastical records can prove of value where church adherence is more or less universal or where the respective numerators and denominators are reliably known. Although the quality of such data is highly variable and must therefore be handled with circumspection, the method figures prominently in this publication in the analysis of Catholic/Protestant differentials in Northern Ireland. The high degree of religious observance by the Catholic population means that baptismal data constitute a credible basis for the estimation of Catholic and Protestant birth rates.

The application of special surveys is particularly relevant in the case of Estonia. Statistical practice in the former Soviet Union did not allow for the identification of ethnic groups and, as a result of this, a highly significant 50 year gap was left in the country’s demographic time series extending from 1940 to 1990. The only means of bridging this gap was through a specially designed linkage survey, based on retrospective reconstruction of the population from event history data. The methodology of this survey and associated results form the topic of the Estonian report.

One question that remains concerns the reliability of demographic statistics about minorities and how they should be interpreted. It is no secret that states have at different times in the past manipulated the true size of their national minorities for reasons of national self interest. This has most often taken the form of understating the size of minority populations either because they have been viewed as a threat to national cohesion or to bolster arguments of a geopolitical nature.

But undercounting may also occur for other reasons. Hence, in which ever country we chose to examine, the Roma/Gypsy population is invariably understated in census enumerations when compared with the results of specialist surveys and even more so when compared with estimates provided by Roma/Gypsy representative bodies. Moreover, the fact that the extent of under-recording can vary from census to census only serves further to confound the matter. This state of affairs may arise for a variety of reasons including census organisation, the nature of and form in which census inquiries are posed, a desire on the part of sections of the Roma/Gypsy population to hide their identity and so on. Similar factors would appear to lie behind, for instance, the understatement of the size of the Hungarian minority in the 1950 census of Czechoslovakia and the size of the Turkish minority in the 1975 Bulgarian census. It is therefore clear that census taking needs to be carefully planned and organised in order to secure the full participation and proper enumeration of minorities. Schedules printed in minority languages and enumerators recruited from minority communities are two of the obvious means of ensuring this.

There are also the discrepancies in the apparent size of different national groups that have arisen when national frontiers have been redrawn and territories have changed hands. Hence, the size of the Hungarian minority recorded in the 1921 census of Czechoslovakia was significantly lower than the number of Hungarians enumerated in the same territory in the 1910 Hungarian census, whereas Slovak numbers were augmented. A similar inconsistency appears between the results of the 1938 census of Czechoslovakia and the 1941 census of Hungary which took place after part of the disputed territory had been returned to Hungarian control. Granted that an exact identity of number would not be expected, if only because of the time differences between corresponding census and the differential movements of peoples that accompany a change of territorial jurisdiction, but the discrepancies are greater than can be explained by purely demographic processes, and clearly suggest that significant numbers of people underwent a change of national designation from one census to the other as a result of the altered political climate.

These reservations about the reliability of minority statistics stem from the past. Now, as we approach the new millennium under the umbrella of an emerging pan-European consensus, the causes of such inconsistencies have largely been eradicated. Co-ordination of census taking within the framework of international organisations has played a significant role here. There is no doubt that the information about minorities in recent censuses is more consistent, reliable and objective than before. None the less, there are still important gaps in our knowledge especially as regards the dynamics of minority populations which need to be filled. Moreover, it is still necessary to exercise care when interpreting existing time series of data or when launching into international comparisons.

The two volumes convey a clear picture of the disparate nature and complexity of the demographic situation of minorities in Europe. The case studies show that minorities range from the more than 40 per cent of total population in the case of Catholics in Northern Ireland to the comparative homogeneity of Finland, Hungary and Estonia, when the ‘newly’ settled Russians are excluded, with the norm falling somewhere around the 10 per cent mark as in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. There is also a clear divide between the fragmentation created by the historical process of settlement in those parts that were formerly under Ottoman rule and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the remainder of the continent. Hence, notwithstanding its comparative homogeneity, Hungary recognises 12, Bulgaria 6, Romania over 15 and Slovakia 7 long established minority communities, although most of these are numerically small and are therefore not amenable to investigation by normal demographic methods.

The patterns of minority population growth are also highly disparate. In all countries where the Roma/Gypsy presence is significant, their rate of increase exceeds that of the majority population. The growth rates of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and the Catholic minority of Northern Ireland have also been well in excess of the respective majority communities. Otherwise, minorities have tended to increase at a slower pace than majorities and even to decline in the most recent period. The Hungarian communities in Romania and Slovakia, the German minority also in Romania, Swedish-speakers in Finland, Romansch- and Italian- speakers in Switzerland fall into this class.

Two broad generalisations do, however, arise from these complex patterns. The first is that in all bar one of the countries studied here, the overall minority presence has undergone decline for much of this century. This may be seen in Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, although the low rates of growth, even decline, now displayed by a number of majority groups, together with a re-awakening of minority self-consciousness, suggests that this may well change in future years. Only in Northern Ireland and Switzerland has the minority Catholic population consistently increased as a proportion of total population. In Switzerland the share of the French-speaking minority group has remained constant in recent decades.

The second generalisation concerns the tendency for minorities to be concentrated geographically where they may form localised majorities. Such patterns have come about in various ways, one of which was the re-drawing of national frontiers and the creation of new states in the early years of this century already alluded to. In some instances, this has led to a situation in which a minority may constitute the majority population in border areas, as with Catholics in Northern Ireland and Hungarians in Slovakia. In other instances, the minority may form the majority in exclaves that are non-contiguous with the rest of the national group as with the Turks in Bulgaria and the Hungarian minority in eastern Transylvania.

The Swiss Confederation exhibits similar characteristics in the sense that most French-, Italian- and Romansch-speakers live in their traditional territories in the western and south-eastern parts of the country along the French and Italian border. The strong concentration of religious groups in certain cantons is a legacy of history, but subsequent migration and secularisation have diluted the clear territorial distinctions. The one group that does not conform to this general pattern is the Roma/Gypsy population, which is widely distributed throughout Central and Eastern Europe. But even in this case, countries exhibit their own specific patterns of concentration and dispersal, although localities where Gypsies are in a majority do not generally extend beyond the commune level.

The unique pattern that has developed in Estonia is also worthy of note. During the inter-war period, five national minorities were officially recognised in the country but the depredations of war and foreign occupation led to the virtual elimination of four of these - the Germans, Jews, Latvians and Swedes. Now only two minorities are formally recognised, the Russians who have been there throughout and Ingerians who have re-emerged on the territory of Estonia during the last 40 years.

When viewed from the perspective of the last four decades or so, fertility variations have been a highly significant factor in accounting for differential growth trends as between one minority group and another and also in comparison with majority communities. At one end of the spectrum are the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania. Their positions have been fundamentally weak because of persistently lower birth rates than in the majority communities and hence, lower rates of natural increase. Estimates for 1992 put their Total Fertility Rates (TFR) at 1.41 and 1.31 in Slovakia and Romania respectively compared with more than 2.04 for Slovaks and 1.55 for Romanians. This weakness has been compounded by a net outflow of Hungarians from both countries since 1989/90, more so from Romania than Slovakia and also by a higher death rate than among Romanians but not Slovaks. As a consequence of these trends, the size of the Hungarian minority in each country would now appear to be undergoing accelerating decline.

The demographic profile of the two Hungarian groups is arguably the weakest of any of the minorities examined here and for purposes of comparison may be contrasted with the Catholics of Northern Ireland. Although Catholic fertility in Northern Ireland is now undergoing quite rapid decline, the TFR remains above 2 and the birth rate differential in favour of Catholics persists. A young age structure also assures a lower Catholic crude death rate. Moreover, whereas in the past out migration from the province was predominately made up of Catholics this bias had disappeared by the early 1970s. Suffice it to say that the outcome of this pattern was a 22 per cent increase in Catholic numbers between 1971 and 1996 compared with a decline of 3 per cent in the non-Catholic population over the same period. Since the Catholic birth rate is expected to remain above that of the non-Catholic population for some time yet, if only because of a greater growth momentum conferred by a younger age structure, the relative growth of Catholic numbers is expected to continue.

The demography of religious groups in the Swiss Confederation bears some similarity to Northern Ireland in that the fertility of Catholics has traditionally exceeded that of the Swiss Protestant population. As a consequence natural growth in the Protestant community has been weak not only because of its lower birth rate but also because of a higher crude death rate that derives from its older age structure. The two countries differ, however, in so far as migration and the acquisition of Swiss nationality have, over time, significantly strengthened the numerical position of Catholics, whereas in Northern Ireland the impact of migration resulted in heavy net Catholic loss up to the 1960s. As a result of this combination of natural increase and immigration/naturalisation, Catholics became the largest single religious group in the Swiss population overall during the 1960s and look set to become the largest single religious group in the population of Swiss nationality by the end of the 1990s.

One further point of similarity relates to the convergence of Catholic and Protestant fertility rates in both countries. In Switzerland this has progressed to the stage where the TFRs in each group have virtually equalised at the low value of around 1.3 - the Catholic value was actually marginally below the Protestant figure in 1996. In Northern Ireland, while the Catholic TFR is still significantly above the Protestant value, it has been rapidly falling towards the Protestant level in recent years. Given the Swiss example, plus the other tangible signs of the standardisation of fertility behaviour and elimination of differentials across the continent, it would not therefore be unreasonable to anticipate the disappearance of this long-standing feature of Northern Ireland demography. In this case, as in Switzerland, differential migration, mixed marriages and growth in the numbers belonging to other religions and of no religion will have an increasingly determining impact on the numerical balance of the population.

The Turkish minority in Bulgaria and the Roma/Gypsy population throughout Central and Eastern Europe also display high rates of natural growth. Since at least the Second World War, successive censuses imply that the birth rate of Bulgarian Turks has been at least two thirds higher than that of ethnic Bulgarians, an inference that is also supported by a short time series of birth rates specific for ethnic group covering the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, despite the evidence of rapid Turkish fertility decline since the early 1990, the relative gap with ethnic Bulgarians may well have widened in the most recent period because births to ethnic Bulgarians have fallen away even more rapidly. In addition, the disparities in age structure that result also generate a significantly lower Turkish crude death rate with the consequence that Turkish natural increase has been above 2 per cent per annum for much of the recent past. This notwithstanding, however, the number of ethnic Turks has remained practically level at between 9 and 10 per cent of total population for the last half century or so because the emigration of Turks has almost exactly offset their natural growth. Under the communist regime, migration was planned within the framework of bilateral agreements, but since democratisation in 1989 has occurred as normal voluntary movement.

The demography of the Roma/Gypsy population is the least well documented of all minority groups and widespread census under-enumeration is though to occur. But there is no questioning its distinctive features comprising a high birth rate, youthful age structure, low crude death rate and natural growth of around 2 per cent per annum. The same distinctive profile characterises Roma/Gypsies in all countries where they form a significant minority. Although the prospect of demographic differences between declared and non-declared Roma/Gypsies is a possible confounding factor, estimates of vital rates are broadly consistent across all countries. However, surveys, where Roma/Gypsies are identified by community declaration rather than by self-declaration, yield different results to censuses and have lower fertility rates.

In the past, when the growth of Roma/Gypsy numbers was checked by a high level of general and infant mortality (the limited evidence suggests that life expectancy is still significantly lower than in other groups) and when majority populations were also increasing more rapidly than now, the Roma/Gypsy proportions in the various countries were relatively stable. The recent period, however, has been marked by rapid advance in the Roma/Gypsy element throughout Central and Eastern Europe. International migration is not thought to have had any great impact on numbers in the recent past although mobility is clearly a significant factor in their geographical distribution within countries.

To the extent that they constitute a declining proportion of the population, the profile of Swedish-speakers in Finland is similar to that of the Hungarian minority in Romania and Slovakia. Yet the fertility and life expectancy of Swedish-speakers is higher than in the majority Finnish-speaking population, although an ageing population structure has converted this into natural decline in recent decades. Emigration to Sweden has also contributed to the falling numbers, through both the direct loss of population and the negative effect on age structure. However, they are also unique amongst the cases presented here in that changing language from Swedish to Finnish as a result of either migration to Finnish-speaking areas or marriage to a Finnish speaker has also been an important factor contributing to their decline.

The stability of the language groups in Switzerland masks significant differences in vital trends and migration. Fertility in the Italian- and French- speaking regions has been much lower than in the German speaking area of the country. But this has been offset by internal and international migration towards the southeastern and western regions and by assimilation to the majority language. Romasch-speakers, who constitute the smallest minority, are marked by a relatively high fertility rate and young age structure. They have, however, suffered from emigration towards the urban parts of Switzerland while this outflow has been compensated by the in-migration of German-speakers.

In Estonia, the overall growth rates of the Ingerian and Russian minorities have substantially outpaced those of the majority population. For much of the last three to four decades, their fertility rates have also been higher but a major contributor to the faster growth of the two minorities over the longer term has been repatriation and general in-migration. Most recently, it would appear fertility in the two minorities has dropped below the Estonian level.

As will already be apparent to readers, the range and quality of data fall some way short of what is necessary to quantify satisfactorily the basic demographic facts with regard to minorities, let alone the cultural and socio-economic concomitants involved with understanding their demographic behaviour. However, description is the first step towards explanation and it is appropriate that some of the broader issues that arise from the various studies should be touched on in this Overview.

The most striking fact to emerge is arguably the range of fertility patterns identified. Not only are there substantial disparities among the different minorities themselves but the relationship to the fertility rates of the majority populations also vary widely. The onset of fertility decline that accompanies the modernisation of traditional societies is one obvious framework within which to view these patterns The point is simply made; the earlier the onset of transition, the longer populations will have been marked by low fertility / low natural increase regimes. The corollary of this is that delays in the onset of fertility transition into the era of modern medicine will not only be accompanied by high birth rates but the low death rates created as a result of effective mortality control will generate very high rates of natural increase. The relevance of this here is that minorities where the onset of fertility transition has been relatively late - Catholics in Northern Ireland and Switzerland, Turks in Bulgaria, and Roma/Gypsies - all exhibit birth rates well above those in other groups. In each case, their growth dynamic greatly exceeds that of the majority population and their share of total population has been rising sharply. By contrast, the Hungarian and Estonian transitions were comparatively early and they have therefore lacked the demographic vitality to maintain numbers relative to neighbouring populations.

However, the theory of fertility transition can provide no more than a general framework within which to place fertility variability, and setting aside purely demographic factors, it is the amalgam of cultural and socio-economic influences that play the vital role by determining such parameters as family size norms, the timing of births and so on. Of the two, although culture is the more elusive to pin down, its effect should not be underestimated. Hence, the deliberate retention of a traditional life style may be as important in accounting for the persistence of high fertility in the Roma/Gypsy population as factors like economic exclusion or inadequate education.

Religion may also be implicated through shaping basic attitudes to matters like education, contraception, abortion and the position of women in society, although it should not be seen in isolation to social or political factors. Hence, is the higher fertility of Turks in Bulgaria to be attributed to the supposedly pro-natalist stance of Islam, or to their lower socio-economic status and living conditions, or to their minority status? This is clearly important in Northern Ireland where pro-natalist attitudes are more strongly developed in the Catholic than Protestant population across all socio-economic groups. Moreover, the presence of a significant Calvinist element may well be a factor in accounting for low Hungarian fertility, especially amongst the Hungarian minority in Romania, and Lutheranism for low fertility in Estonia, certainly vis a vis the population of Russia. A location on the eastern flank of the territorial extension of the European marriage pattern is an additional factor in the case of Estonia. But equally, the marked variability within individual religions - the high fertility rate of Catholics in Northern Ireland stands in sharp contrast say to the comparatively low fertility of Catholics in Slovakia as does the low TFR of Italian-speaking Catholics when set against that of other Catholics in Switzerland - shows that the association between fertility and religion is not a simple one.

The socio-economic factors that have brought about the current low fertility levels in Europe are well known. They include access to education, the participation of women in the work force, urban living, the cost of rearing children, new forms of partnership, the trend towards single parent families and so on. Hence, in those populations that obviously lag behind in these respects - the Turks of Bulgaria and Roma/Gypsies - one would expect fertility levels to be higher than in other groups. Equally, the depression of living standards and general economic insecurity that have accompanied the transition from planned to free market economies would appear to be implicated in the very low fertility rates now found in some of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

However, it is arguably in the less clear cut cases that the impact of socio-economic factors is of greater intrinsic interest, for instance, in accounting for the lower level of Hungarian fertility vis a vis the majority populations of Romania and Slovakia or the differential between Swedish and Finnish-speakers in Finland or between German and French-speakers in Switzerland. Although fertility differentials among these groups are now small in an absolute sense, the relativities are of long standing. One suspects that detailed contrasts in socio-economic structure and cultural systems play a central role in maintaining such differentials but the dearth of statistical information precludes investigation and it remains a tantalising topic for future research.

It has been postulated that minority status in its own right influences fertility behaviour. The argument is based on the common sense notion that the status and position of minorities is some direct function of population size, i.e. large minorities carry more weight than small minorities. Hence, since a minority can better control its own destiny from a position of numerical, and hence political, strength vis a vis the majority, minorities, on the basis of normative considerations, might be expected to maintain higher fertility levels and grow more rapidly than populations overall. Plainly, this very generalised proposition is not supported by the evidence here and for each example consistent with the notion there is another in contradiction. Indeed, from the fact that fertility of the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia is lower than in Hungary proper one might argue that minority status actually depresses growth.

However, one version of the hypothesis combines the effect of minority status with ethnocentrism and restricts the effect to Catholic minorities in predominantly Protestant countries that have a realistic prospect of eventually becoming a majority. When couched in this more limited format, the argument would appear to offer an explanation for the greater numerical growth of the Catholic population in Northern Ireland. It would also account for the observation that Catholic fertility has traditionally been substantially higher in Northern Ireland, where there is a minority effect, than in the Irish Republic, where there is not. But equally, this more refined version does not offer an explanation for the traditionally higher fertility of Catholics in Switzerland where similar minority effects are absent. In other words, in whatever manner it is couched, minority status would appear to fail as a general explanation of fertility differentials.

Turning to the significance of international migration, the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland and the Swedish-speaking population of Finland have a long tradition of emigration. Indeed, the fact that Catholics would by now comprise the majority if it had not been for the heavy outflows from Northern Ireland earlier this century serves to illustrate the potential power of differential migration in determining population composition. In Switzerland, on the other hand, the point has already been made that immigration has considerably augmented Catholic but not Protestant numbers and is also responsible for the increasing number of Christian-Orthodox and Muslim elements within the Swiss population.

On the other hand, outside the framework of bilateral agreements, like the population exchanges between Bulgaria and Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s, together with the exodus of Germans from Romania during the period of totalitarian rule, or as a result of exceptional events such as the Hungarian uprising in 1956 or the deportations and repatriations in the case of Estonia, migration has only been a significant determinant of minority population size in the former communist countries of Europe since 1989/90. The early years of democratisation were marked by an upsurge of emigration from these states, within which minority groups constituted a disproportionate part. For instance, immigration to Hungary has been the primary cause of the recent decline in Romania's Hungarian minority.

Few, if any, potential countries of destination have welcomed the prospect of large scale immigration from Central and Eastern Europe and controls exercised by the European Union have curtailed the primary out-flow for purposes of permanent settlement. But the economic pressure to emigrate remains considerable and some is known to be directed through illegal channels. Moreover, the troubles in the Balkans continue to generate periodic upsurges in refugee movements.

The demographic scenarios that accompany each case study show that the future prospects of the different minority groups are likely to vary considerably. Unless its fertility undergoes a marked recovery, the Hungarian minority in Romania and Slovakia may be expected to continue to decline both in relative and absolute terms. By comparison, Roma/Gypsy numbers should rise rapidly in both countries and, in Romania at least, their numbers may actually surpass the size of the Hungarian minority sometime during the first quarter of the next century. In the process, Romania and Slovakia may be expected to become a little more heterogeneous as the proportions attributable to the respective majorities undergo marginal decline.

In Bulgaria, the relative number of ethnic-Bulgarians may similarly undergo some relative decline due to growth in the Turkish and Gypsy minorities, while the status of Roma/Gypsies as the largest minority in Hungary will be further entrenched. In Estonia the future is less clear because of uncertainty about the future status of the Russian immigrant population. If existing trends with regard to the acquisition of Estonian citizenship are maintained, which is considered most likely, the official Russian minority might be expected to grow to around 8 per cent of the country’s population early next century. But alternatively, if all Russian immigrants elect for Estonian citizenship, their number could well climb to around a fifth of the total.

The slow downward drift in the number of Swedish-speakers in Finland, apparent since 1950, is likely to persist. Since it is thought that this will be more marked than the decline in the population as a whole, the proportion of Swedish-speakers will also continue to fall. In Northern Ireland, the key question relates to the chances of the Catholic minority becoming the majority community as a result of demographic change. The answer to this would seem to be no, at least within the time frame encompassed by the scenarios. The Catholic proportion will, however, continue to rise and, within little more than a generation, one would anticipate a population that is almost equally divided between the Protestant and Catholic communities. In Switzerland, by contrast, Catholics already the largest single group within the population of both Swiss citizenship and overall, should have achieved an absolute majority by 2010 but the position is complicated by the growing emergence of a population professing no religious faith. Although the distribution by language is expected to show little change over the next two decades, the number of Romansch-speakers is projected to rise strongly but from a low base, while Italian speakers will undergo significant decline due to long-standing low fertility and the decreasing importance of in-migration.

The demographic record with respect to long-term population forecasting is patchy because demography lacks reliable theoretical models for the prediction of demographic events. Empirical observation suggests that fertility and mortality patterns across Europe have undergone strong convergence in recent decades. Birth and death rates are now low in virtually all countries and natural change hovers on the margin between growth and decline, while synthetic indices like the total fertility rate are emphatic in suggesting that the longer term future will be one of actual population decline. Some minority groups can thus be considered as fore-runners of a more general trend. Some groups still exhibit characteristics that are at variance with this but, on balance, the evidence suggests that these merely lag behind the others and will eventually come into line. On this basis one might therefore anticipate a significant reduction in Hungarian mortality, both in Hungary proper and among the minorities. Equally, the high fertility levels of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria and Catholics in Northern Ireland might be expected to drop towards the respective national averages. None the less, even through the future course of demographic events in Europe appears to be well established, a large degree of uncertainty obviously remains and the eventual realities may well be at variance with the different scenarios presented here.

However, it is not just demography that will shape the future. Minorities are also affected by the integration of individuals into majority communities through mixed marriages and by migration away from the areas in which they predominate. Since this mainly reduces the size of the population of reproductive age, it also leads to indirect erosion of their numbers through the loss of potential live births. But equally, minority self consciousness is likely to be raised as a result of the trend towards greater recognition of minority rights. In so doing, their minorities may well increase in size as individuals gain the confidence to express their true identity.

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