Page:NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 18; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; THE SOCIETY CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7.pdf/14

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7

population in Czechoslovakia occurred in middle-sized cities with populations of 20,000 to 100,000. The population of towns below 2,000 inhabitants has remained largely static.

Czechoslovakia has six cities with populations over 100,000, which at the beginning of 1973 accounted for 16% of the total population. Prague in 1973 had a population of nearly 1,086,000, or more than three times the size of Brno, the next largest city. Population increases between 1961 and 1973 were especially rapid in Kosice which almost doubled in population and in Bratislava which grew by more than 30% (Figure 5).

Much of the increase in urban population has been the result of the migration of agricultural workers to the cities. This migration, already characteristic of the pre-World War II period, accelerated following 1950, when the disparity between rural and urban incomes became more pronounced and as more people, especially the young, were attracted by city life. Between 1950 and 1961 some 590,000 persons, representing 27% of the agricultural labor force in 1950, left agricultural employment. By 1972 an additional 242,000 had left agricultural employment, with the result that the total agricultural labor force decreased from 2,188,000 in 1950 to 1,356,000 in 1972. It may be presumed that most of these persons, along with their dependents, took up residence in urban areas when they transferred to nonagricultural occupations, which during the 22-year period increased from 3.6 million to 6.0 million.

Since World War II successive governments have tried to encourage young rural people to stay on the farm and young urban people to take up agricultural pursuits. The largest return movement occurred in 1946-47, when the postwar coalition government induced 1.5 million Czechs and Slovaks to settle in the border areas which had been depopulated by the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. Subsequent attempts by the government have been considerably less successful. In July 1970 the government announced a new long-term borderland resettlement program, offering lucrative bonuses and economic subsidies to induce people of all professions to move in these underpopulated agricultural areas.

2. Age-sex structure

Since 1900, the age structure of Czechoslovakia's population has undergone considerable change: the proportion of the population age 60 and older has been rising while the proportion of those under age 15 has been declining (Figure 6). The age structure is now typical of countries which have experienced the demographic transition from comparatively high to low levels of both fertility and mortality and have low rates of growth. At present, Czechoslovakia's population is characterized by a large proportion of adults and a relatively small proportion of children. The median age, which has risen from 30.4 years in 1950 to 32.1 at the beginning of 1971, is 4 years higher than the median age in the United States. Regional differences show that the population of the Czech Lands had a median age of 33.8 years while that of Slovakia had a median age of only 28.6 years.

The profile of the population in 1972 (Figure 7) clearly shows the sharp reductions in the birth rate during World War I and during the severe depression years of the 1930's, and the declining birth rate of the 1960's. The lag in the demographic development of Slovakia as compared with that of the Czech Lands is also reflected in the age structure of each region. The broader base of the population pyramid for Slovakia reflects the higher fertility and younger population in that region.

8

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7