Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Demography division and health statistics

Milana Rakića 5, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Final results on the main demographic developments in the year of reference. The methodology on births and deaths and reference data are in line with United Nations recommendations "Principles and recommendations for the Vital Statistics System", Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 and Regulation (EU) No 205/2014. Also, methodology and data harmonized with the census methodology 2022.

The objective of the annual survey on births is to collect data on demographic features of live births and stillborn, as well as on demographic and socio-economic characteristics of parents.

The statistics of births are envisaged to cover all births (live births and stillborn).

The following data are collected: municipality of birth, vitality, sex, date of birth and personal number, citizenship of child, body mass and length at birth, and gestation age as well, place of usual residence of mother, child birth order, child born within wedlock, out of wedlock or is abandoned newborn, parents’ date of birth, parents’ place of birth, parents’ citizenship, ethnicity, educational attainment, activity and occupation.

The objective of the annual survey on deaths is to collect data on demographic and socio-economic features of deceased person, data on origin and cause of death, as well as data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics of mother of deceased infant.

The following data are collected: for every deceased person (sex, date of death, date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, ethnicity, place of usual residence, marital status, educational attainment, activity, occupation, where the death event took place, informant on cause of death, underlying cause of death, origin of death), for deceased infant (child born within wedlock or out of wedlock, body mass at birth, gestation age, date of birth of mother, number of children that mother has born up to the moment), for violent deaths (origin of violent death, nature of injury).

The objective of the annual survey on marriages and divorces is to collect data on concluded and divorced marriages, as well as on demographic and socio-economic characteristics of spouses.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Live births

Deaths

Population 

Data are available at national level of geographical detail.

Live births and Deaths - first reference year 1961.

Live births and Deaths - reference periods at which series occur 1961-1997, 1998-2022.

Live births and Deaths - reason is for the breaks is that we have no data for Kosovo and Metohija from 1998.

Live births and Deaths - treatments are footnotes which explained break in series.

Population - The data on the number of population in 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991 are census data, while for the inter-census years the number of population was estimated as an average inter-census difference. The Census of population 1991 was not fully accomplished on the territory of the AP Kosovo and Metohija and therefore the estimates were calculated for the territory and municipalities. Since 1998, certain data for the AP Kosovo and Metohija have not been available for the SORS, and for this reason they are not included in the coverage for the Republic of Serbia. For the period from 2002 to 2022 given are the population estimates that were calculated according to the census of population results and the annual statistics of natural and the mechanical population movements. The methodology of vital statistics has been harmonized with the methodology applied for the censuses of population, which ensured possible links between the data of population censuses with vital statistics.

Not applicable.

absolute numbers, rates, persentage points, coefficients

The reference date for population data is the end of the reference period (midnight of 31st December).

The reference period for vital events data is the calendar year in which the events occurred.  

The reference period for internal migration flow data is the calendar year in which the migration occurred.

Law on Official Statistics

Not applicable.

Law on Official Statistics published in "Official Gazette of RS", No. 104/09 (Articles 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and 49) and No. 24/11, ensuring the confidentiality of data.

Not available.

03.07. Statistical release of Vital events

03.07. Statistical release of Estimates of Population

10.07. Statistical release of Marriage and Divorce

10.07. Statistical release of Internal Migrations

31.12. Demographic yearbook

Release calendar

Only by press releases about statistical releases via web presentation.

Annually

Vital events, 2022

Marriages and divorces, 2022

Internal migration, 2022

Estimated population, 2022

Demographic yearbook 2021 - publication - online

Vital events, 2022 - statistical release - on line

Marriages and divorces, 2022 - statistical release - online

Internal migration, 2022 - statistical release - online

Estimated population, 2022, statistical release- online

STAT database

Request for microdata

Protection and safety of individual data on physical persons and legal entities is performed according to strictly defined procedure. 

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS), as the responsible producer of official statistics provides using of anonymized micro data according to the submitted request.

The request can be submitted by:
• Authorized scientific – research organizations (institutes, faculties, universities and centers of extreme values); 
• Researchers and PhD students;
• Institutions conducting separate project financed by national or international research programs.

The request can be submitted at the e-mail address: stat@stat.gov.rs, or sent to the postal address:
Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 
Milana Rakica 5
11 050 Belgrade,  Serbia

Not applicable.

Not available.

Data is validated before publishing in SORS.

No quality assessment is available.

Government institutions, science institutions, individual requirements, press etc.

User satisfaction survey - last one was conducted 2021

Customer orientation is one of the general principles in dissemination procedures.

To identify the needs and level of satisfaction of users using the products and services of statistics, the SORS conducts every two years, the Customer Satisfaction Survey, whose results are published on the site.

Statistical data are fully produced in accordance with the plan and program of official statistics. 

Information on vital events of year (T-1) at aggregate level is collected till spring of the year T; these data are disseminated at July 1 of year T.

Detailed data by sex, age and other characteristics for the demographic events of year (T-1) are collected till summer of the year T; these data are disseminated at 31 December of the year T.

No time lag.

There is no special treatment of breaks in time series. The practice is to give the following footnotes, when presenting the data on live births and deaths for the Republic of Serbia for the period 1961-2022, which explain that data until 1997 refer to the territory of Serbia with Kosovo and Metohija but, from the year 1998, data relate to Serbia without Kosovo and Metohija.

For the calculation of the indicators of different statistical services in SORS used an estimated population in mid-year and this is the reason for diversity data on the estimated number of population on 1 January of the reference year, which are transmitted to Eurostat within POPSTAT data collection.

All data are consistent.

The population is based on data from the last census adjusted by the components of population change.

Not available.

There is no policy regarding data revision but harmonization with census methodology every 10 years and harmonization with UN and EUROSTAT recommendations.

In 1994 was completed the harmonization of vital statistics methodology with the methodology applied in the census 1991 and started its implementation in practice.

In 2005 we started to collect data on vital statistics according to the methodology that is harmonized with the methodology of the census, which was conducted in 2002.

In 2015 we started to collect data on vital statistics according to the methodology that is harmonized with the methodology of the census, which was conducted in 2011.

 *In line with the regulations on keeping registers on births, deaths and marriages are compulsorily recorded in registers of respective regions whether the relevant persons are their residents or not. However, when the data are in the course of processing, they are aggregated according to the usual residence (of the infant’s mother, deceased person, i.e. the groom). As for divorces, they are aggregated according to the last joint spouses’ residence. Thus, the results of demographic statistics are based on the usual residence principle, which agrees with the concept of usual resident population applied in population census 2011.

Annually

As an authorized producer of official statistics, the SORS is in charge of defining the survey instruments, creating the methodology, the code lists required for the surveys, preparing and printing the survey forms and distributing them to the SORS regional departments. 

The SORS regional departments distribute the survey paper forms to the reporting units in their territory, compile the filled paper forms, downloading electronic forms (in the middle of 2016, the process of collecting data through an electronic form within the project "all in one place" started), evaluate data coverage, accuracy and completeness, and carry out data entry only from a paper forms and corrections in all data.

The final evaluation, analysis, creation of tables and data publishing is carried out at the SORS.

Regional offices are carried out checking contingents and logical validity of survey data.

Basic validations are carried out to check if the codes provided by codebook are possible.

Then, cross validations are carried out to check consistency and accuracy between the different variables.

1. Design and printing survey forms: September − November.
2. Delivering survey forms to the SORS regional departments until 30 November (to reporting units i.e. registrars:  until 31 December).
3. Survey forms receipt at the regional departments, check-up and forwarding accurate data in electronic form to the SORS: 

Regional departments: until April 1

Logical and accounting control, creating tables and producing results: until June 1.

“Vital events in the Republic of Serbia” release: July 1.

 Downloading of electronic forms about the births is done continuously.

Not applicable.

Data via links will be available according to the publication calendar.