Oh boy how'd that happen? Well, let's talk about it.

What is Bulgaria



Lot of you probably don't know much about Bulgaria. We don't really have that many Bulgarian users. But Bulgaria is southeastern country in Europe. It's capital is Sofia. It's a relatively poor country bordered by many balkan nations including Turkey. It has quite an imperial past. It had fought alongside the Germans in both World Wars and lost them. Soon after, a left wing uprising abolished the monarchy and created a one party socialist state, which ended up being in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Despite being under the Soviet heel, its stalinist leaders, Georgi Dimitrov and Todor Zhivkov, had rapidly industrialized the country and after a few decades, Bulgaria's GDP had increased rapidly. But one key thing that communists in Bulgaria did, was spread collectivized farming.

This is why Bulgaria's population has peaked at around 1985...



But then, a revolution happened in Europe. People didn't like communism anymore. An ideology that one led against oppression had only been used as a disguise for oppression. You all know how it goes. The Berlin Wall falls, the Soviet Union falls, communism in Europe is shrunk some stupid sliver in Moldova.



Now what happened in Bulgaria? Well after communists started losing power all over Europe, the Communist Party in Bulgaria gave up its power too and allowed Bulgaria to transition to democracy and into a market based economy.

OK now to the shrinking part

But of course, that led to the end of the collective farms. Agricultural jobs had now started to dwindle as Bulgaria was now urbanizing. Birth rates began to drop after this, and with Bulgaria's introduction to the EU, it started to move across European countries for more job opportunities.

Ok now we're in jeopardy because TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE DOING THAT!

Bulgaria's net migration is in the negatives because no one wants to live in stupid and jobless Bulgaria and they wanna live out in the big beautiful jobful world!

Bulgaria's population has been shrinking ever since. It's currently 6.8 million.

By 2050, it will be 5.1 million.

By 2100, it will be 3.4 million.

So what is Bulgaria going to do?

Well before we get into what Bulgaria is going to do, we have to discuss the stuff Bulgaria will NOT do. Bulgaria does not want migrants (meaning you must be le epic bulgarian). In fact, they're so against migrants that they want to deter Turks from entering in the country. How might you ask? Could it be through...

A WALL?????



On the other hand, they do want to increase birth rates the same way other depopulating countries would, providing incentives to want to have kids, like government benefits or maternity leave. However, the Bulgarian public don't really seem to respond well to that. Some people choose not to have babies and the total fertility rate of Bulgaria is still very low.

Until Bulgaria can find a way to make a new generation of baby boomers, Bulgaria will shrink.



Sources

https://www.indexmundi.com/bulgaria/net_migration_rate.html#:~:targetText=Net migration rate: -0.3 migrant,(based on midyear population).

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41109572

https://www.populationpyramid.net/bulgaria/2019/