Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 18 ISSUE 2
Written by Agatha POPESCU, Toma Adrian DINU, Elena STOIAN

The analysis of the dynamics of the rural population and its structure in Romania in the period 2007-2016 was based on various demographic and economic criteria, the empirical data provided by the National Institute of Statistics, and corresponding processing methods. In 2016, Romania had 9,120,865 inhabitants in the rural areas, representing 46.2 % of the total population. The decline of 3.26 % of the rural population is explained by the low birth rate, high mortality rate, and migration mainly from rural to urban and urban to rural, and also to other countries (46 % of the rural population). The rural population is aging, proved by the unbalanced ratio between the people of 60 years and older (23.03 %) and the people of 0-14 years, (16.04%). About 4 million persons, i.e. 44.73 % of the country active population is in the rural space. Also, the elder age groups have a higher share in the economically active rural population. The rural employment accounts for 3.74 million people, i.e. 44.55% of the employment in Romania. The extreme age categories have the highest share in total employment, attesting the aging of the rural employment. Also, the low training level is reflected by the low share of rural people with high education: 6.52 % tertiary, 1.51 % post high school, 33.89 % high school, and 21.90 % vocational. About 40.54 % of the rural employment is represented by farmers and skilled workers, of whom 76 % are of 35 years and over and also most of them have a low training level. About 86 % of the rural population is part-time employed, and only 41 % is full time. Also, other disparities compared to the urban area, regard the average monthly income per household which accounted for Lei 2,447.02 in 2016, the higher income belonging to the employees. The agriculturists' income was Lei 2.163.31/household, by 12 % less than the average income in the rural area. Therefore, the rural population is an important human resource in the economy, but its living standard is very low. This situation will be changed by the implementation of the National Programme of Rural Development 2014-2020, whose measures will improve education level, farm technologies and efficiency, resource utilization, infrastructure in the rural space, social inclusion, and living standard of the rural population.

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