Demographic determinants and characteristics of the family structure of Croatian population

In the text the main characteristics of Croatia's contemporary demographic development are portrayed as well as the family population picture. It has been determined that there is a prominent causal connection and permeation among the contemporary demographic processes, relations and trends in Croatia and the determinants forming the family population structure, as well as with trends in the number and demographic characteristics of marriages and divorces. All the relevant determinants of Croatian population development during the last decades indicate ever more unfavourable characteristics (natural depopulation, demographic ageing, reproduction and generation depopulation, excessive spacial population polarisation...), in addition to which come the war in the last decade of the twentieth century, with all its grave consequences in the sphere of demographic losses. The latter determined the development and characteristics of the family population structure in Croatia in a negative way, which, undoubtedly, has been most clearly reflected in a more pronounced decrease of the number of marriages and increase of divorces, followed by a rising divorce rate and a greater growth of live-born children out of wedlock.