Population, Living Standards and Well-Being, 1949-1989

This chapter reviews the main demographic tendencies: fertility, mortality and migration. It focuses on the two principle components of human capital: health and education, and shows that socialism was not able to maintain its complex health system, and mortality rates started to increase in the mid-1960s. The chapter deals with the inability of socialist regimes and their centrally planned economies to achieve a convergence with Western Europe in terms of income. It offers an overview of the main tendencies with the composite indicator Human Development Index (HDI). The post-war population restoration paired with an initial reduction in mortality has led to an initial population growth bonus for the European socialist countries that started to decline in the 1960s and converged to the Western European level by 1990. The total fertility rate (TFR) decreased in the decades after World War II in Eastern Europe, which was natural in the light of the replenishment of the population.