THE EVOLUTION OF FERTILITY IN ROMANIA

Romania has seen in the recent decades a decline of the total fertility rate well below the population replacement level, thus leading to a decrease in the number of inhabitants and the aging of the population. In industrialized countries the replacement level for population is around 2.1children per woman. The aim of this paper is to analyse the trend of the total fertility rate, TFR, in Romania between 1960 and 2011. In order to reach this goal we employ time series analysis. Our results suggest that our series presents a downward trend, from 2.3children in 1960 to 1.25 children per woman in 2011, and has no seasonal components. A future study will examine which are the determinants of this decline for TFR in Romania and which governmental action will increase fertility in our country.