Demographics of Serbia

Demographic features of the population of Serbia include vital statistics, ethnicity, religious affiliations, education level, health of the populace, and other aspects of the population.

History
Censuses in Serbia ordinarily take place every 10 years, organized by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. The Principality of Serbia had conducted the first population census in 1834; the subsequent censuses were conducted in 1841, 1843, 1846, 1850, 1854, 1859, 1863 and 1866 and 1874. During the era Kingdom of Serbia, six censuses were conducted in 1884, 1890, 1895, 1900, 1905 and the last one being in 1910. During the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, censuses were conducted in 1921 and 1931; the census in 1941 was never conducted due to the outbreak of World War II. Socialist Yugoslavia conducted censuses in 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, and 1991. The two most recent censuses were held in 2011 and 2022.

The years since the first 1834 Census saw frequent border changes of Serbia, first amidst the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, then the subsequent formation and later disintegration of Yugoslavia and, finally, the partially recognized independence of Kosovo in 2008, which affected territorial scope in which all these censuses have been conducted.

Total fertility rate 1860–1949
The total fertility rate is the number of children born per woman. It is based on fairly good data for the entire period. Sources: Our World In Data and Gapminder Foundation.

Vital statistics
Source: Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia    Data for Serbia excluding Kosovo.

Marriages and divorces
Data for Serbia excluding Kosovo.

Ethnic groups
Situated in the middle of the Balkans, Serbia is home to many different ethnic groups. According to the 2022 census, Serbs are the largest ethnic group in the country and constitute 80.6% of population (86.6% if categories not declared and unknown nationalities are excluded). Hungarians are the largest ethnic minority in Serbia, concentrated predominately in northern Vojvodina and representing 2.8% of the country's population (3% if categories not declared and unknown nationalities are excluded). Bosniaks are second largest ethnic minority mainly inhabiting Sandžak region in southwestern and most southern part of the country representing 2.3% of the country's population (2.5% if categories not declared and unknown nationalities are excluded). Romani people constitute 2% of the total population, or 2.1% if undeclared and unknown are not taken into account. Other minority groups include Albanians (0.9%), Slovaks and Croats (0.6%), Yugoslavs (0.4%), Romanians, Vlachs and Montenegrins (0.3%). The Chinese and Arabs are the only two significant immigrant minorities, with the latter often using Serbia as a transient country on their way to Western Europe. In 2022, 140 thousand migrants arrived in Serbia from Russia, and the country's authorities announced their intention to grant them citizenship in an expedited manner.

Religion


Serbia is largely a homogeneous Eastern Orthodox nation, with Catholic and Muslim minorities, among other smaller confessions.

Orthodox Christians number 5,387,426 or 81.1% of country's population. The Serbian Orthodox Church is the largest and traditional church of the country, adherents of which are overwhelmingly Serbs. Other Orthodox Christian communities in Serbia include Montenegrins, Macedonians, Romanians and Bulgarians.

There are 257,269 Roman Catholics in Serbia, roughly 3.9% of the population, mostly in Vojvodina (especially its northern part) which is home to minority ethnic groups such as Hungarians, Croats, Bunjevci, Albanians, as well as to some Slovaks and Czechs. Protestantism accounts for about 1% of the country's population, chiefly among Slovaks in Vojvodina as well as among Reformist Hungarians.

Muslims, with 278,212 or 4.2% of population, form second largest religious group. Islam has a strong historic following in the southern regions of Serbia, primarily in southern Sandžak. Bosniaks are the largest Islamic community in Serbia; estimates are that some third of country's Roma people are Muslim.

Languages


The official language is Serbian, member of the South Slavic group of languages, and is native to 5,607,558 or 84.4% of the population. Recognized minority languages are: Hungarian (mother tongue to 170,875 people or 2.6% of population), Slovak, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Rusyn as well as Bosnian and Croatian which, like Serbian, are standardized varieties of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language. All these languages are in official use in municipalities or cities where more than a 15% of population consists of national minority. In Vojvodina, provincial administration uses, besides Serbian, five other languages (Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, and Rusyn).

Immigration
Foreign citizens in Serbia in 2016.

After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 100,000 Russian citizens and 18,000 Ukrainian citizens arrived in Serbia within 7 months.

Other demographic data
Data that follows has been derived from the Ministry of Demography and Population Policy of Serbia Official website


 * Median age of the population:
 * Total: 43.16 years (2018)
 * Male: 41.73 years
 * Female: 44.53 years


 * Mother's mean age at first birth:
 * 28.4 years (2018)


 * Number of marriages per 1000 inhabitants:
 * 5.2 marriages/1,000 population (2018)


 * Median age of the groom at the time of marriage:
 * 34.2 years (2018)


 * Median age of the bride at the time of marriage:
 * 31.1 years (2018)


 * Number of divorces per 1000 marriages:
 * 275.2 divorces/1,000 marriages (2018)

Education
According to 2011 census, literacy in Serbia stands at 98% of population while computer literacy is at 49% (complete computer literacy is at 34.2%). Same census showed the following levels of education: 16.2% of inhabitants have higher education (10.6% have bachelors or master's degrees, 5.6% have an associate degree), 49% have a secondary education, 20.7% have an elementary education, and 13.7% have not completed elementary education.

Health
The life expectancy in Serbia at birth is 74.8 years, 71.9 for males and 77.7 for females. Serbia has a comparatively old overall population (among the 10 oldest in the world), with the average age of 42.9 years.