Demographic developments of surviving Austria-Hungary

I was thinking how will AH develop demographic if it survive.

Outside Hungary I think the linguistic borders are mostly stable, in the long term I could see some changes in Küstenland in the later part of the 20th century, with it turning into AHs Florida, a place where people move to enjoy their retirement. In Hungary we may see Hungarian expansion almost everywhere except Slavonia and Croatia, likely the Transsylvanian Saxons will go the same way as in OTL with a growing migration of Romanians to their territorium.
While the linguistic borders are mostly stable in Cisleithania. We will see changes Vienna and Sudetenland will likely get large migration, but migrants here will likely be so diverse, that they will be assimilated like the Poles did in the Ruhr area. So we may see a strengthing of the German position, they may lose a lot of their smaller enclaves, but they will dominate the industrial area and Vienna.

Population-wise I expect the empire to double in size by 2000 to around 100 millions, that's a conservative guess. Vienna are going to be a metropolis with around 6-11 million people, and it suburbs are begining to press into Transleithania and Bratislava are de facto one of them.

Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia are interesting, on one hand we see the increase of Sudetenlands population, but we also see a significant increase in the Czech one, likely it will have around 15-16 million split between 9 millions Czechs, 6 million Germans and the rest mostly Poles. The reason for the sligthly lower Czech population are mostly migration.

Most of this are guesswork based on demography and development in more stable states.

Hrm. I wonder what the economy of Austria-Hungary would be like. It strikes me that there was a generation of lost development, as industries, farmers, etc. had to adjust to the destruction of traditional markets. My guess is that Hungary and Czechoslovakia might be more industrialized, but hrmm.

Faeelin said:

Hrm. I wonder what the economy of Austria-Hungary would be like. It strikes me that there was a generation of lost development, as industries, farmers, etc. had to adjust to the destruction of traditional markets. My guess is that Hungary and Czechoslovakia might be more industrialized, but hrmm.

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As you said I think greater industralisation of Bohemia are likely, I doubt it with Hungary, through we will likely see a increase in light industry, they simply lack the materials for heavy industry (through we may see something in Transsylvania). But still you will likely see a expansion of the franchise and some kind of land reform, the result are going to be a growing middleclass and a move toward more specialised farming (the result are a fall in production, but we will see a higher surplus from the food produced). But all in all a unified AH are going to be a lot richer than the sum of states which lay on the states territorium after it was split. Another aspect in OTL Bosnia was centre for heavy industry in the former Yugoslavia, I don't know whether that was a result of Yugoslavias planned economy or based on it was the best place for it.

Faeelin said:

Hrm. I wonder what the economy of Austria-Hungary would be like. It strikes me that there was a generation of lost development, as industries, farmers, etc. had to adjust to the destruction of traditional markets. My guess is that Hungary and Czechoslovakia might be more industrialized, but hrmm.

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Difficult. After all, we cannot rule out AH becoming communist or something like that. Furthermore, we do not know whether worldwars happen, how AH suffers from them, and whether the Great Depression happens.

Nevertheless, assuming AH does not go communist, there's no reason to assume that it falls short from average western European economic development. I'd assume it to be more or less around the numbers of France, Germany or Northern Italy - and therefore vastly superior to what it is today for most inhabitants.

Considering demographics, I'd say that AH population will grow a bit faster than the European average - they'd have to catch up economically before becoming rich and loosing population growth and being predominantly catholic may help a bit as well. The aforementioned 100 million I nevertheless find a bit to much. I'd say about 60 million (today: Austria ~8, Czech ~8, Slovak ~4, Slovene ~3, Croats ~4, Hungarians ~ 10, plus some others - far from 100 millions). If I remember correctly, AH had in 1914 about 25 million inhabitants and Germany about 70. 2 Worldwars and an economic miracle later there are about 80 million Germans. Even without worldwars and economic crises I doubt that AH population would quadruple.

Nevertheless, even "only" 60 million would make AH one of the most populous countries in Europe and quite likely would result in AH being among the G8.

Monty Burns said:

Difficult. After all, we cannot rule out AH becoming communist or something like that. Furthermore, we do not know whether worldwars happen, how AH suffers from them, and whether the Great Depression happens.

Nevertheless, assuming AH does not go communist, there's no reason to assume that it falls short from average western European economic development. I'd assume it to be more or less around the numbers of France, Germany or Northern Italy - and therefore vastly superior to what it is today for most inhabitants.

Considering demographics, I'd say that AH population will grow a bit faster than the European average - they'd have to catch up economically before becoming rich and loosing population growth and being predominantly catholic may help a bit as well. The aforementioned 100 million I nevertheless find a bit to much. I'd say about 60 million (today: Austria ~8, Czech ~8, Slovak ~4, Slovene ~3, Croats ~4, Hungarians ~ 10, plus some others - far from 100 millions). If I remember correctly, AH had in 1914 about 25 million inhabitants and Germany about 70. 2 Worldwars and an economic miracle later there are about 80 million Germans. Even without worldwars and economic crises I doubt that AH population would quadruple.

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Austria-Hungary had in 1910 52 million inhabitants, I don't think a doubling are unlikely, especially when we look to the fact that Czechoslovakia deported 3 million Germans after WWII, Austrian population has almost stand completely still thanks to loses und WWII and the collapse of Viennas population, the loss of 2-3 millions Jews. There are several other demographic loses (German minorities in the entire empire), and you don't count Romanians, Poles and Ruthenians.

Well, if it is an AH that won the first world war and then maintained it's borders, than I can guess the population after the war would rise in 10 million from annexed territory, and until tody there would be 80 million people in the empire.

Valdemar II said:

I was thinking how will AH develop demographic if it survive.

Outside Hungary I think the linguistic borders are mostly stable, in the long term I could see some changes in Küstenland in the later part of the 20th century, with it turning into AHs Florida, a place where people move to enjoy their retirement. In Hungary we may see Hungarian expansion almost everywhere except Slavonia and Croatia, likely the Transsylvanian Saxons will go the same way as in OTL with a growing migration of Romanians to their territorium.
While the linguistic borders are mostly stable in Cisleithania. We will see changes Vienna and Sudetenland will likely get large migration, but migrants here will likely be so diverse, that they will be assimilated like the Poles did in the Ruhr area. So we may see a strengthing of the German position, they may lose a lot of their smaller enclaves, but they will dominate the industrial area and Vienna.

Population-wise I expect the empire to double in size by 2000 to around 100 millions, that's a conservative guess. Vienna are going to be a metropolis with around 6-11 million people, and it suburbs are begining to press into Transleithania and Bratislava are de facto one of them.

Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia are interesting, on one hand we see the increase of Sudetenlands population, but we also see a significant increase in the Czech one, likely it will have around 15-16 million split between 9 millions Czechs, 6 million Germans and the rest mostly Poles. The reason for the sligthly lower Czech population are mostly migration.

Most of this are guesswork based on demography and development in more stable states.

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You mean if it survived to this day, OTL 2010?

The population of OTL Czech Rep. is 10.5 million. I don't think the difference between OTL and TTL population would be 1.5 million as you've gussed for several reasons:

a) Czechs have traditionally been very reluctant to migrate in search of jobs
b) Without WW2 (340,000 dead, mostly Jews ), the post-war ethnic cleansing of Sudetenland, and the other crap that has hit us in our timeline, including the Communists who drove as much as half a million people into emigration, OTL Czech-speaking population of Czechia could well be between 11-12 million. If the Sudeten Germans had been allowed to stay, the population could be as high as 16-17 million - about the population of the Netherlands.
c) Why would the Czechs migrate? Bohemia-Moravia were the most industrialized regions of Austria-Hungary. It's actually more likely that people would immigrate into Bohemia-Moravia in search of factory jobs. Most of the migrants would likely come from Slovakia and Galicia and, being Slavs with very similar languages, they'd assimilate over time into the Czech society. So, in the end TTL Czech-speaking population of Bohemia-Moravia might be actually higher than in OTL.

And my hometown would surely profit from A-H's survival

Winner said:

You mean if it survived to this day, OTL 2010?

The population of OTL Czech Rep. is 10.5 million now. I don't think the difference between OTL and TTL population would be 1.5 million for several reasons:

a) Czechs have traditionally been very reluctant to migrate in search of jobs
b) Without WW2 (200,000 dead, mostly Jews), the post-war ethnic cleansing of Sudetenland, and the other crap that has hit us in our timeline, including the Communists who drove as much as half a million people into emigration, OTL population of Czechia could well be between 11-12 million.
c) Why would the Czechs migrate? Bohemia-Moravia were the most industrialized regions of Austria-Hungary. It's actually more likely that people would immigrate into Bohemia-Moravia in search of factory jobs. Most of the migrants would likely come from Slovakia and Galicia and, being Slavs with very similar languages, they'd assimilate over time into the Czech society. So, in the end TTL Czech-speaking population of Bohemia-Moravia might be actually higher than in OTL.

And my hometown would surely profit from A-H's survival

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Migration would mostly be to Vienna (in 1910 there was around 120 000 Czechs in Lower Austria/Vienna with a continued growth rate following other major European capitals I could easily see half a million Czechs in Vienna or at least descendants) and to lesser extent Sudentenland, my guess a lot of Czech living in German majority areas and vice versa would in one or two generation change language. But all in all my suggestion has fell on the conservative side.

I don't know, 100 million does seem a lot, but when I saw Valdemar's OP I out of curiosity checked how much people live there now (rounding the numbers, there's no point to be too precise), so I thought I could post it here, so we know what we're talking about.

Austria - 8 million
Hungary - 10 million
Czech Republic - 10 million
Polish voivodships Malopolskie and Podkarpackie, and Ukrainian Oblasts: Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil - 6 million
Slovakia - 5 million
Zakarpattia oblast - 1 million
Slovenia - 2 million
Croatia - 4,5 million
Bosnia - 4,5 million

That's 51 million

Add South Bucovina, Sudtirol, the chunk of Hungary that is now in Romania (the biggest thing for which I couldn't find a number quickly, if whole Romania is at around 22 million, this part can't have more people than 8, max 10 million) Gorizia, Gradisca, Trieste, southern bit of Silesia Voivodship, substract Hertsa, the northern raion of Ternopil Oblast and eastern strip of Chernivtsi Oblast, and some small areas in the north of Malopolskie voivodship. Add the expelled Sudeten Germans, some Poles in Galicia, and likely some more people in places i don't recall right now.

...so, that gives circa 70M, maybe a bit more that live (or would have lived if not for the population transfers and expulsions) there today, with OTL demographic growth. Can more stability and avoiding the World Wars if possible give it additional 30 million inhabitants? Seems like a lot, to be honest.

Well, there would be more immigrants too, so I guess it's plausible.

Valdemar II said:

Migration would mostly be to Vienna (in 1910 there was around 120 000 Czechs in Lower Austria/Vienna with a continued growth rate following other major European capitals I could easily see half a million Czechs in Vienna or at least descendants) and to lesser extent Sudentenland, my guess a lot of Czech living in German majority areas and vice versa would in one or two generation change language. But all in all my suggestion has fell on the conservative side.

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Still, if there isn't anything comparable to OTL WW2 and post-war ethnic cleaning that utterly changed the ethnic make-up of Central Europe, the Czech-speaking population would be higher than in OTL. The German-speaking population would be substantially higher too.

As for the Sudetenland - it's actually interesting to speculate if Czech immigration would change the ethnic composition of these regions. IIRC in OTL 1938, by the time the Munich Treaty was signed, there have been around 3 million Germans and 0.5 million Czechs living in the Sudeten-areas. BUT, it should be mentioned that some of these Czechs were in fact 'colonists' sent there by the Czechoslovak government to, well, keep an eye on those Germans

On the other hand, due to the economic inter-dependence and proximity, it is likely the Czechs would be settling down in the Sudetenland. How far would this alter the overall ethnic make-up is hard to guess.

ctesiphon said:

I don't know, 100 million does seem a lot, but when I saw Valdemar's OP I out of curiosity checked how much people live there now (rounding the numbers, there's no point to be too precise), so I thought I could post it here, so we know what we're talking about.

Austria - 8 million
Hungary - 10 million
Czech Republic - 10 million
Polish voivodships Malopolskie and Podkarpackie, and Ukrainian Oblasts: Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil - 6 million
Slovakia - 5 million
Zakarpattia oblast - 1 million
Slovenia - 2 million
Croatia - 4,5 million
Bosnia - 4,5 million

That's 51 million

Add South Bucovina, Sudtirol, the chunk of Hungary that is now in Romania (the biggest thing for which I couldn't find a number quickly, if whole Romania is at around 22 million, this part can't have more people than 8, max 10 million) Gorizia, Gradisca, Trieste, southern bit of Silesia Voivodship, substract Hertsa, the northern raion of Ternopil Oblast and eastern strip of Chernivtsi Oblast, and some small areas in the north of Malopolskie voivodship. Add the expelled Sudeten Germans, some Poles in Galicia, and likely some more people in places i don't recall right now.

...so, that gives circa 70M, maybe a bit more that live (or would have lived if not for the population transfers and expulsions) there today, with OTL demographic growth. Can more stability and avoiding the World Wars if possible give it additional 30 million inhabitants? Seems like a lot, to be honest.

Well, there would be more immigrants too, so I guess it's plausible.

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Yes I can see why, but let's us see a few population difference.

5 millions German was removed from the the former AH territorium after WWII, 3 millions Jews died or or fleed. I think we can safely raise other loses with at least 2 millions. That's 10 million people more in 1950. Let's look at demography among Germanic states Austria and Germany has had the lowest population growth, Denmark has more or less doubled sinse 1914, Netherland has grown with 250%, the Flemish has kept the growth low with 50% increase. We also have the elements of 50 years of communism. I don't see a doubling as unlikely if AH stay unified.

If we are saying that there will be no 2nd great war situation and everything progresses hunky dory then I would say the by today the Czech regions would be just as German as they were Czech.

I'm not really well versed in the economy of war time Austria-Hungary, but the first thing soldiers do when they come home is try and find work, if theres work in Prague guess whos going there.

Valdemar II said:

Austria-Hungary had in 1910 52 million inhabitants

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Oh, substantially more than I had assumed.

Valdemar II said:

, I don't think a doubling are unlikely, especially when we look to the fact that Czechoslovakia deported 3 million Germans after WWII, Austrian population has almost stand completely still thanks to loses und WWII and the collapse of Viennas population, the loss of 2-3 millions Jews. There are several other demographic loses (German minorities in the entire empire), and you don't count Romanians, Poles and Ruthenians.

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Well, starting with 52 millions you're probably right - if the worldwars are avoided. Decreasing speed of population growth happens with increasing economic welfare - that will require more time in several parts of AH than in Germany or other Western European countries and thus will allow for continuing population growth and internal emmigration. Catholicism might continue it even further. And finally, AH will likely have large rural areas, which tend to have higher population growth as well.

Valdemar II said:

5 millions German was removed from the the former AH territorium after WWII, 3 millions Jews died or or fleed. I think we can safely raise other loses with at least 2 millions. That's 10 million people more in 1950.

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The Sudeten Germans I took into account, but not the others, since I didn't know the numbers. Perhaps you're right.

Oh, and that 250% Dutch growth, that's crazy!

ctesiphon said:

The Sudeten Germans I took into account, but not the others, since I didn't know the numbers. Perhaps you're right.

Oh, and that 250% Dutch growth, that's crazy!

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No it's not. The Netherlands had a population of about 5.9 million in 1910 (6.7 million in 1920) and currently has a population of about 16.5 million.
Which is an increase of +/- 280% (16.5m/5.9m) in a century. Which Archdevil has pointed out should be: (16.5-5.9/5.9)*100% = 180%...

In some way... we have to considered again the end of the war(aka the plans of give Galicia to both Poland and Ukraine for exchange of accepted Habsburg Monarch) and how much territory will win or change(see before sentence) post bellum.

In some way the 100 millon mark.. the empire can easily urpass that, more if the plans against the magyar gentry(aka universal sufrrage plus a partial agrarian reform in Translethia) work succesfuly, with that consecuence... i can think than 110 millon can be a good estimation of how much habitant can have the empire.

Again we have to take as factor emigration and inmigration, a more rich A-H will reduce the former and attract the latter.

Janprimus said:

No it's not. The Netherlands had a population of about 5.9 million in 1910 (6.7 million in 1920) and currently has a population of about 16.5 million.
Which is an increase of +/- 280% (16.5m/5.9m) in a century.

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Then the increase is 180%: (16.5/5.9-1)*100% = 180%.

Still the highest percentage in Western Europe IIRC.

Germaniac said:

If we are saying that there will be no 2nd great war situation and everything progresses hunky dory then I would say the by today the Czech regions would be just as German as they were Czech.

I'm not really well versed in the economy of war time Austria-Hungary, but the first thing soldiers do when they come home is try and find work, if theres work in Prague guess whos going there.

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I doubt we will see changes in the linguistic borders, the Czech national identity was fully viable at this point, and Czech was used at all level of civil life, which mean that German are unlikely to push Czech out of use. Of course the Czech population will be defacto bilingual, but lot of people are that without their languages being endangered.

Monty Burns said:

Well, starting with 52 millions you're probably right - if the worldwars are avoided. Decreasing speed of population growth happens with increasing economic welfare - that will require more time in several parts of AH than in Germany or other Western European countries and thus will allow for continuing population growth and internal emmigration. Catholicism might continue it even further. And finally, AH will likely have large rural areas, which tend to have higher population growth as well.

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Yes which was a important reason to why I saw it as conservative estimate. I'm not sure Catholicism will continue, we will likely see a strengthing of the secular movements as a alliance between Socialist/Social Democrat, Czechs and Othodocs. Political it will be interesting the Social Deemocrats will grow stronger and they will serve as a moderating influence with their demands for federalism rather than embracing a unitarian state or separatism it could serve a universal party for the Empire.

ctesiphon said:

The Sudeten Germans I took into account, but not the others, since I didn't know the numbers. Perhaps you're right.
Oh, and that 250% Dutch growth, that's crazy!

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As mention later it's was 150% growth still rather impressive. I once made made comparative growth analyse for Scandinavia, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland and Austria to find the potential growth rate for Germany without the world wars sadly it's on my old computer, and the interesting part are while the German growth follow the Dutch and Danish through the 19th century it stopb in the 19th century. Austrias are sligthly lower than German growth in the 19th century but follow it in the 20th, and lies significant lower than Switzerland which it followed in the 19th century.

Nivek said:

In some way... we have to considered again the end of the war(aka the plans of give Galicia to both Poland and Ukraine for exchange of accepted Habsburg Monarch) and how much territory will win or change(see before sentence) post bellum.

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For now I think it's a better idea not to. The point aren't to create a realistic world situation, but look at AH at it borders in 1914, and see how that would look like in 2010. This aren't a timeline but a scenario people can use to be inspired off, when they let the Empire survive.

In some way the 100 millon mark.. the empire can easily urpass that, more if the plans against the magyar gentry(aka universal sufrrage plus a partial agrarian reform in Translethia) work succesfuly, with that consecuence... i can think than 110 millon can be a good estimation of how much habitant can have the empire.

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Not unlikely but I wanted to keep the estimates conservative

Again we have to take as factor emigration and inmigration, a more rich A-H will reduce the former and attract the latter.

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I think poverty mean a higher growth rate, while we will see a higher emigration rate, we also see a higher birth rates among rural population (in Europe urbanisation almost always followed a large improvement in income). Plus aI doubt we will see large immigration for AH it will take decades before the more backward areas (primary Transylvania, the South Slavic areas and Galicia) are up to date, and they will serve as source of labour until then. While I doubt that AH will become a equal to Germany in industry, I think it could become a much major industrial power than France are.

ctesiphon said:

I don't know, 100 million does seem a lot, but when I saw Valdemar's OP I out of curiosity checked how much people live there now (rounding the numbers, there's no point to be too precise), so I thought I could post it here, so we know what we're talking about.

Austria - 8 million
Hungary - 10 million
Czech Republic - 10 million
Polish voivodships Malopolskie and Podkarpackie, and Ukrainian Oblasts: Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil - 6 million
Slovakia - 5 million
Zakarpattia oblast - 1 million

Well, there would be more immigrants too, so I guess it's plausible.

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One could try to compare with Italy, also majority Catholic, also sending many emigrants to the US and only slightly more backwards - if Austria grew as fast 1910-2010 as Italy it would have about 86 million today. (Italy's casualties during WWII were relatively light compared to those of Eastern Europe, if still awful enough)

Of course, is this a no WWI TL? In which case there probably would be more Italians as well...

Bruce

I actually estimated that there would be around 85-90 million people in Austria-Hungary based on a few things, since there are so many variables in history.

Firstly, the Austro-Hungarian birthrate was declining yet was still higher by 1/3 than that of Great Britain's. With the advancement of education and hygiene the death rate would continue to fall faster than the birth rate. However, the birth rate would continue to decline as it had been since 1880.

Emigration abroad was an important factor to remember that the number of emigrants was around 250-300,000 in the 1909-1913 period, however this was offset with around 1/3 of all emigrants being temporary and returning to the empire. Some groups had a higher return rate than others, around 45% of Magyars returned whereas only 15% of Jews returned to the dual monarchy.

Emigration was not spread evenly throughout the empire. Not surprisingly, emigrants tended to come from the poorer regions in the east (Galicia, Bukovina and Transylvania) of these 2/3 were Slavs. Of the Slavs emigrating, a disproportionate amount were from the following groups:

% of total emigrants vs % of the Empire's population
Poles 20% / 10%
Croats 12% / 4%
Slovaks 12% / 4%
Jews 8% / 4%

In contrast, groups in the more economically advanced areas of the empire had much smaller emigration abroad. In fact mass German and Czech emigration had peaked in the 1880s.

Germans 10% / 24%
Magyars 15% / 20%
Czechs 4% / 13%
Italians 1% / 4%

So, without World Wars and assuming the rate of emigration continues to rise until the early 1920s then plateaus until 1930 the population will rise to about 58-60 million by 1930. This would mean the average annual growth rate is around 0.7%. This would be assuming that the New World countries continue to have a liberal immigration policy, since over 3/4 of the emigrants were going to the U.S. another 10% to Latin America and roughly 6-7% to Canada. The effect on the U.S. would be an additional 3 million permanent immigrants.

Between 1930-1950 I'd assume that emigration would plateau and begin a gradual decline with more industrialisation and mechanisation of agriculture. Also, birthrates would continue to decline with the average annual rate of growth declining to 0.5 to 0.6% per annum. This would mean that the country would have roughly 67 million souls by 1950.

Between 1950-1970 if there is no war there would not be any war deaths or demographic upheaval as in OTL, however there also would not be a postwar baby boom as many European countries experienced. Around this time with smaller family sizes and less emigration the population growth would stabilise at around 0.6% per annum, making the population around 75 million by 1970.

Although a Catholic country, I can still see contraception being used and population growth begin to decline in the 1970s and 1980s to around 0.5% per annum, giving the empire around 83 million people by 1990.

Finally, though there would be a decline I'd imagine this would be a more conservative country giving it an above replacement birth rate. That being said the growth rate stabilises at 0.4% per annum and the population would be around 90 million in 2010.

Because of internal migration to Vienna and Bohemia I'd expect that larger parts of the population would be counted as German and Czech speakers respectively. In 1914 around 1/3 of Vienna's population consisted of immigrants from the rest of the empire and this city would probably have 8.5 to 9 million people in its metro area today and be the 4th or 5th largest European city.

Without Israel, and no WW2 there would probably be from 3.35 to 3.5 million Jews in the Empire. Before the war many were assimilating and most were using German, Hungarian and Polish as their first language, this was a trend that would continue as more and more moved to urban areas.

I'm sure there are many more assumptions that could be made, but with such a diverse empire it would take a while to study the demographic trends of each ethnic/religious group by region.