Cultural Demography
Ethnic Slovenes comprise approximately 88 percent of Slovenia's total population of just over two million. Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Hungarians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Albanians, Italians and others make up the remainder. The Slovenian constitution grants ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Italians special status and guarantees each community one seat in the National Assembly.
Slovenian (Slovene) is the main and official language. Various other languages are also spoken in Slovenia. For example, Serbo-Croatian is sometimes listed as one such spoken language. The Ethnologue database states that Serbo-Croatian language was spoken by almost 75 percent of the former Yugoslavian population prior to the breakup of the country, and was an officially-recognized language there. The public relations and media office of the government of Slovenia, however, states that Serbo-Croatian was never an official language of Slovenia and certainly does not exist anymore.
Today, in Slovenia -- as in a number of other post-Yugoslav countries -- a segment of the population apparently continues to speak this language, which has been the subject of great political controversy. In Slovenia, it was reported by Ethnologue that about 155,000 people speak the language. Since 1991, however, people in the Balkan area have become increasingly sensitive about these issues related to national identity. In neighboring Balkan countries, the Croats, the Serbs and the Bosnians have deliberately introduced various new words in order to differentiate their languages as much as possible from their ex-common language.
Hungarian and Italian are also significant spoken languages in Slovenia, especially in the border regions, while German fluency is common near the Austrian border. English is widely understo od, especially within business and academic communities.
In terms of religious affiliation, Roman Catholicism is predominant. There are also Protestants (mainly Lutherans), Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists.
Human Development
Slovenes have an average life expectancy at birth of 75 years of age (70 to 71 years for males, 78 to 79 years for females). The infant mortality rate is less than 4.47 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to recent estimates. An estimated 99 percent of the population, age 15 and older, can read and write. The Slovenian government provides somewhat different estimates of average life expectancy - 69.4 years for men and 77.3 years for women. The government also provides a different estimate of infant mortality: 8.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. About 5.2 percent of GDP is spent in the country on educational expenditures. About 9.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to sanitation, water, and health care is considered to be generally excellent.
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Slovenia in the very high human development category, at 29th place. Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief,
www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for research sources.