Significant demographic changes in the Romanian countryside. In the present conditions of
transition, the Romanian village has to cope with numerous situations caused by the depleted natural
increase and the internal and external migrations that ended in the aging of the population throughout
the country. In 1998, the group of over 60 olds represented 24% of the rural population, which
means that nearly every fourth individual was an elderly. In the last decade of the 20th century the
number of Romania’s inhabitants dropped by some 704,000 persons, of which 443,000 in the
countryside. After 1990, the structure of the active population was significantly modified. The
industrial workforce decreased, while these practicing agriculture, or employed in services and
public administration, increased. Privatisation of the agricultural sector, together with the
restructuring of other economic branches led to new social-economic categories emerging in the
rural area. Solutions to the many problems raised by the demographic situation in the countryside
calls for a strategic approach liable to make optimal and time-stable proposals.