SINGLES BECAME THE LARGEST GROUP IN Croatia, increasing opportunities for the single economy

The bleak demographic picture of Croatia these days reflects in the number of issued work permits. By mid-year, the number of foreign workers from all of 2022 has almost been reached. The labor market is certainly the biggest victim of demographics, which has generated a negative natural increase, or natural decline, over the past decade. The number of live births has lagged behind the number of deaths by more than 170,000. This should be added to the negative migration balance. Official statistics will estimate it at just below one hundred thousand, but considering that some new guest workers do not deregister from Croatia, where they use health insurance and some other benefits, this minus is even significantly larger. This was confirmed by the results of the 2021 Census, according to which Croatia lost almost 400,000 residents in ten years, a decrease of 9.3 percent.

Demographic decline and migration

An additional problem is the structure and aging of the population. This is particularly contributed to by new emigration, as entire families in their prime, with small children, often without a clause of temporariness, are moving abroad rather than just one member going for temporary work. While last year recorded the largest demographic decline, the migration balance was positive for the first time since the onset of the great recession in 2008.

New data from the Census Bureau shows some other trends. For the first time, singles have become the largest group when looking at households by the number of members. There are 399,075 of them, and they are the only category that has recorded growth in these ten years, by as much as 26,000, or seven percent. In the previous two censuses, the most numerous were two-member households, while in 1981 and 1991, the most numerous were four-member households. Until then, the largest households, with five or more members, were the most numerous. The dramatic changes are evident from the fact that such households have been the least represented since 1991, and their share fell from 32.6 percent in 1953 to 12.4 percent in 2021. Similarly, but in the opposite direction, the share of singles changed – from 14.1 percent in 1953 to 27.8 percent in 2021, with the last two decades responsible for a larger share increase than occurred in the previous fifty years.

Like the entire population, singles are also getting older – in the last census, those over 65 years old became more numerous than all generations under retirement age for the first time – they make up one percent more than all singles in the working age of 15 to 64 years. Now, the most numerous singles are aged 65 to 74, while ten years earlier, the most numerous group was aged 70 to 79.

Among nearly 400,000 single households, the most are widowed – 151,640, among which as much as 83 percent are widows and only 17 percent are widowers. Among bachelors, the gender differences are smaller, but they lean the other way – of the 138,229, 60 percent are unmarried men and 40 percent are unmarried women. In the third large single category, among 70,033 divorced individuals, the number of men and women is equal. However, due to the large number of widows, women make up more than 58 percent of the single population, so it can be said that most single-member households consist of women and older individuals.

Increasingly smaller packaging

A similar, but somewhat milder trend of increasing the number of singles is recorded in the rest of the EU countries – there are about 223 million of them, and their share has increased from 32.8 to 33.6 percent in five years, but the differences among countries are enormous. The most solitary are Swedes (51.2 percent), followed by other Scandinavians and Germans, while Slovakia has the least – less than ten percent. According to this logic, Croatia is very close with 10.4 percent singles in the population.

It is logical to expect that the share of singles in Croatia will grow. Therefore, this story about demographic changes is very much related to business. Every manufacturer will have to turn to the smallest possible, single-member community. This means smaller formats of everything and anything, especially food with a limited shelf life. Thus, instead of family packaging of chicken from one kilogram to one and a half kilograms, in the future, those with one to two pieces of meat will perform better. Eggs, which used to be bought in large quantities of 30, are now most often bought in tens, or even six pieces, and even smaller amounts could be expected. And for milk, which is ‘standard’ at one liter, there could be increasing interest in half or quarter-liter formats. A loaf of bread is anyway getting shorter, as is a chocolate bar, which is increasingly ‘on a diet’ – from 100 grams to 80 grams, and this applies to a number of other sweets as well. These products, even without demographic changes, are getting smaller packaging with each new recession (while the price remains the same). A bottle of wine could also be reduced from the usual liter, or 7.5 deciliters to half a liter or 2.5 deciliters.

Singles are not wealthy

The single economy does not only relate to consumer goods. Singles need smaller, affordable apartments, and accordingly smaller formats of refrigerators and freezers, as well as washing machines and dishwashers. They do not need large family cars either. A similar logic applies to services. It is easy to assume that singles will need institutional care more in their later years than peers in larger households, which is a new opportunity for further opening of an already lucrative niche of homes for the elderly.

Even before old age, it is already an ‘impossible mission’ for a single person to find an affordable tourist arrangement because most accommodations are in double rooms and apartments (with a possible third, auxiliary bed). However, single tourism could become an interesting niche in the future.

However, one must be realistic. Most singles in Croatia are not wealthy. It is easier to share housing costs with a partner or simply a roommate. Singles have less money left for spending. This should be taken into account when sizing offers. This does not mean that there are no wealthy singles, but they are mostly women and older individuals, meaning also limited financial strength. Nevertheless, the single economy could occupy an increasingly larger share of the market in the future. After all, in Croatia, single and two-member households are already a majority, reaching a cumulative share of 54.5 percent and are the only households whose share is growing. Enough for the wise.