Coping with decline: Comparative social-historical analysis of depopulation and community welfare in Europe, 1950-2022

Introduction

The shrinking population and closure of schools and hospitals are among the main signs of regional depopulation. Although this phenomenon has been widespread in Europe since the 1950s, affecting both rural and urban communities, historical studies of depopulation are still scarce.

Research Focus

How communities have responded, and indeed coped, with the decline in population and welfare over the past 70 years is uncharted territory. DEPOP will break new ground by illuminating regional depopulation as a potent example of a slow burn crisis, occurring over extended periods of time. We will:

1. Map out demographic trajectories of depopulation and their links to welfare provision.
2. Investigate community strategies to cope with depopulation.
3. Develop a new framework to study community welfare in the slow burn crises as depopulation.

Understanding Slow Burn Crises

Slow burn crises occur over extended periods and may thus be less visible than one-time shocks and disasters. There is currently no approach to examine how communities cope with slow burn crises.

Methodology

DEPOP will develop a novel multi-level approach by drawing on and developing methodologies in compositional demography, which is rooted in the historical concept of communication communities. DEPOP will look at communities in depopulating regions in Finland, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. We will analyse:

• (macro-level) population trajectories and state welfare provision data, available as reports and regional statistics.
• (meso-level) collective coping strategies through social organisations, collected through their archives and witness seminars.
• (micro-level) individual coping strategies, examined through oral histories.

Contribution to Knowledge

DEPOP’s historical approach and findings will offer the first-of-its-kind comparative framework to study communities affected by the slow burn crisis of depopulation. This will help us to advance our understanding of why some communities have historically been more resilient than others when faced with slow burn crises.