The topic of population decline and the one-child problem in the interwar Transylvanian social thought

Abstract

In the interwar Europe the fear of population decline appeared in national, racial or ethnic contexts. Ethnic Romanian researchers of Transylvania sought the decrease of (child) mortality as a means of raising population size. Ethnic Hungarian social scientists added the “one-child system” as a cause of population loss, but the topic was less nationally charged than in Hungary. The “one-child” custom preoccupied the Romanian elite of the Banat area, who blamed the “inner aliens” for its spread.