Importance of migration and counterurbanisation as factors of stabilization of the demographic situation of the peripheral regions – example of South Bohemia

Anotace: The article presents an example of two regions of the northern periphery of South Bohemia, as a territory where following a prevailing out-migration of the population and negative demographic development resulting from historical socio-economic events, a reversal occurred one hundred years later which tended to stabilise its migration. The determining factor of this change is the volume and character of migratory flows. The negative migration balance (-2.4‰ between 1991 and 2010 for both regions) has changed over the last five years of 2011-2015 to a positive one (3.1‰), especially for municipalities with up to 100 residents (11.0‰ between 2011 and 2015). The values of the migration importance index point to a change in the importance of migration from the "negative" level to the "preservative" level. The weakly prevailing in-migration and (in certain cases) counterurbanisation flows from metropolitan and regional centres have been confirmed. Although the observed peripheral regions are naturally continuing to lose population (rate of natural increase of -4.4‰ in 2015) and overall the number of inhabitants does not grow, or it grows to a minimum degree (overall increase of 0.5‰ in 2015, -0.7‰ between 2011 and 2015), the important factor for the potentially more progressive demographic development of the peripheral region is the favourable age structure of the in-migrants (the share of children below the age of 15 years of 22.9%, the age index 140.3%). Counterurbanisation based on the migration of seniors was not confirmed. The identified trends of counterurbanisation and in-migration of young families thus becomes an important process for demographic "healing" of the peripheral regions, as illustrated by the example of remote rural areas of South Bohemia. Given its low volume and low economic and social impact, in general counterurbanisation cannot be compared with urbanisation, however it is important not only for the population stability, but also for the overall social stability of the affected, long depopulated rural regions.