The Current Trends of Population Development in the Slovak Republic

After the Second World War, the population development in Slovakia has witnessed two major periods, characterised by different patterns of demographic behaviour, on the one hand, and by different social, economic and cultural conditions largely shaped by the predominant political system, on the other. The first one fell on the second half of the 1960s, when the significant differences in the demographic phenomena between Western and Eastern Europe — especially between the democratic and totalitarian communist societies — became apparent. The second period has started in the early 1990s, demonstrating how fast the population development may “respond” to the radical political and economic changes in society.