Demographics of Moldova - Analysis

Analysis

Moldova's territory is generally ethnically homogeneous. Moldovans (Romanians) form majorities in 33 of the 37 first-tier territorial units (including over 90% in 15 districts, between 80% and 90% in 9 districts, between 70% and 80% in 7 administrative units, and between 50% and 60% in two units), and a 33.5% plurality in Transnistria, where there are 32% Ukrainians and 27% Russians. Gagauzians represent an 82% majority in the autonomous territorial unit of Gagauzia, with only 5% Moldovans (Romanians). Bulgarians represent a 66% majority in the Taraclia district, with 14% Moldovans (Romanians). Finally, Russians represent a 43% plurality in the municipality of Bender, with 25% Moldovans (Romanians). Ukrainians represent between 20% and 30% minorities in four units with Moldovan (Romanian) majority: Bălţi, Briceni, Ocniţa, and Rîşcani, and one with Moldovan plurality (Transnistria). Elsewhere, the ethnic populations are under 20% district-wise (generally much less).

Although before 1991 Moldova was the most densely populated of the former Soviet republics (129 inhabitants per square kilometer in 1990, compared with 13 inhabitants per square kilometer for the Soviet Union as a whole), it had and has only few large cities.

The largest and most important of these is Chişinău, the country's capital and its most important industrial center, with a population of 712,218 in 2004. The city's population is 72.11% Moldovan (Romanian), 13.92% Russian, 8.28% Ukrainian, and 5.69% others (Bulganians, Gagauzians, Jews, Poles, Gypsies, etc.). The proportion of Russophones living in Moldova decreased in the years immediately after 1989 because of the emigration to Russia, after an immigration from Russia had taken place during the Soviet period.

The second largest city in the country, Tiraspol, had a population of 184,000 in 1990. Located in Transnistria, with a population of 158,069 in 2004, it is the capital of the breakaway republic. In contrast to Chişinǎu, Tiraspol has only some 15% Moldovans (Romanians), with Russians comprising 41.7%, and Ukrainians 33%. Due to deportations by the breakaway authorities, and emigration during and after the 1992 War of Transnistria, it has been reported that the Moldovan (Romanian) population has gone down by up to 10,000 since 1990.

Other important cities include Bălţi, with a population of 162,000 in 1990, and 127,561 in 2004, and Bender, with a population of 132,000 in 1990 and 100,169 in 2004. Other major cities include Rîbniţa, population 53,648, Cahul, population 35,488, Ungheni, population 32,530, Soroca, population 28,362, and Orhei, population 25,641.

Traditionally a predominantly rural country, Moldova gradually began changing its character in the 20th century. As urban areas became the sites of new industrial and intellectual jobs and amenities such as hospitals, the population of cities and towns grew. The Soviets kept the population of Moldova under control with the famous Soviet policy of propiska, which forbade a person to live in another locality than the one written in his or her identity documents without approval of Soviet authorities. The new residents of Moldova's cities during the Soviet era were not only Moldovans, who had moved from the nearby rural areas, but also many Russians and Ukrainians who had been recruited to fill positions in industry and government, moving in from other parts of the Soviet Union.

Many people emigrated to Romania in 1940 (estimated at 200,000) and 1944 (estimated at more than 200,000), and others had lost their lives during the war (over 100,000 as Soviet soldiers in 1944–1945, and up to 50,000 as Romanian soldiers before 1944, including as Soviet POWs in 1944–1945), in Stalinist persecutions (over 8,000 executed, ca. 50,000 sent to Gulag, over 200,000 deported), and during the 1946–1947 famine (216,000 deceased). During the 1940s, thousands of young people were recruited to work in large-scale Soviet construction projects. Then, as a consequence of industrial growth after 1956, there was significant immigration to the Moldavian SSR by representatives of other ethnic groups, especially Russians and Ukrainians.

At the time of the 1989 census, Moldova's total population was 4,335,400. The largest ethnic group, Moldovans, numbered 2,795,000, accounting for 64.5% of the population. The other major ethnicities were Ukrainians, about 600,000 (14%); Russians, about 562,000 (13.0%); Gagauz, about 153,000 (4%); Bulgarians, about 88,000 (2%); and Jews, about 66,000 (2.0%). There were also smaller but appreciable numbers of Poles and Roma in the population. In Transnistria ethnic Moldovans accounted for 40% of the population in 1989, followed by Ukrainians (28%), and Russians (25%). In the early 1990s, there was significant emigration from the republic, primarily from urban areas and mainly by non-Moldovan minorities. Moldovans made up a sizable proportion of the urban population in 1989 (about half the population of Chişinǎu and other cities), as well as a large proportion of the rural population (over 85%), but only 23% of the ethnic Moldovans lived in the republic's ten largest cities, with the rest of the community being predominantly rural.

Unlike Moldovans, Russians tend to be urban dwellers in Moldova; more than 72% of them lived in the ten largest cities in 1989. Many of them came to the Moldova after it was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. Some of them came to alleviate the postwar shortage of qualified labor in the Moldavian SSR, which was created by the rapid industrialization, but also by the loss of human life during the war, deportations, and famine. Ethnic Russians settled mainly in Chişinǎu, Bălţi, Bender, and in the cities of the eastern bank of the Dniester, such as Tiraspol, Rîbniţa, and Dubăsari. Only about 25% of Moldova's Russians lived in Transnistria in 1990, as many as in Chişinǎu alone.

In 1990, Moldova's divorce rate of 3.0 divorces per 1,000 population had risen from the 1987 rate of 2.7 divorces per 1,000 population. The usual stresses of marriage were exacerbated by a society in which women were expected to perform most of the housework in addition to their work outside the home. Compounding this were crowded housing conditions (with their resulting lack of privacy) and the growing economic crisis.