Stanovnistvo

About Stanovnistvo

Stanovništvo — Journal Profile

Stanovništvo (in English, Population) is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access scientific journal of demography and population studies, first published in 1963 in Belgrade, Serbia. It is one of the oldest demographic journals in the world and, on its own account, the oldest in the Balkans. Its print ISSN is 0038-982X and its electronic ISSN is 2217-3986, both printed on the journal's official site at stnv.idn.org.rs. The journal is published by the Centre for Demographic Research of the National Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, and since 1990 the Association of Demographers of Serbia has co-published it. It appears twice a year, in electronic and printed versions, charges authors no fees of any kind, and is written for the regional community of population researchers first, while publishing work from other geographical contexts as well.

On Journals World this record is anchored on the title Stanovnistvo and the ISSN pair 0038-982X / 2217-3986. The twin-check carried out for this profile — searching the directory by both ISSNs in hyphenated and unhyphenated form, by the title with and without its diacritic (Stanovnistvo / Stanovništvo), and by slug variants, then fetching every candidate directly — found no second record for this journal. The stored record also carried a numeric publisher code instead of a publisher name; the publisher is the Belgrade institute named above, as the journal's own site and its DOAJ record both confirm.

At a Glance

History: A Demographic Journal Since 1963

The journal's own brief history, published on its official site, is unusually well documented for a regional title. Stanovništvo was first published in 1963 by the Center for Demographic Research of the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, making it a contemporary of the post-war institutionalisation of demography as a discipline. Its initiator and first editor-in-chief was Academician Miloš Macura, a figure of genuine international standing who directed the United Nations Population Division from 1966 to 1972 — an origin that helps explain the journal's early connections to world demography. The site names the editors who followed: Dušan Breznik, Miloš Macura again, Miladin Kovačević, Goran Penev, Mirjana Rašević and Vladimir Nikitović, with Ivan Marinković taking over as editor-in-chief in December 2024.

The journal has marked its own milestones in print. A widely cited anniversary paper, written for the journal's fiftieth anniversary, reflected on fifty years of publication from its 1963 launch and used the occasion to survey how demography itself had changed — from a predominantly formal, quantitative discipline into a broader social and interdisciplinary field — a transformation the journal's contents mirror. Since 1990 the Association of Demographers of Serbia has co-published the journal, tying it formally to the country's professional demographic community. Contributors over the decades have included internationally prominent population researchers, among them Frank Lorimer, Eugene Hammel, Edward Rosset, Massimo Livi-Bacci, Zdenek Pavlik, Robert Cliquet, Jean-Paul Sardon and Alain Parant, as the journal's own history records. Its digital archive reaches back well beyond the online era through the Serbian national bibliography services, and OpenAlex's record for the journal carries publication years from 1998 onward for the works it has matched — a database window, not the journal's start, which is firmly 1963.

Scope and Article Types

Stanovništvo publishes peer-reviewed papers from a range of disciplines in the field of population studies, together with their public-policy implications. Its declared aims are to disseminate demographic knowledge among researchers, to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to demographic phenomena, and to provide a forum for professionals concerned with population studies in the region and neighbouring countries — researchers, teachers, students, and the producers and users of demographic data alike. Its regional focus is the countries of former Yugoslavia, but the journal states plainly that it also publishes articles from other geographical contexts, and its pages are open to work on fertility, mortality, migration, population ageing, family and household change, population policy and the methods of demographic measurement wherever those questions are studied.

The journal accepts defined article categories. It publishes research papers reporting previously unpublished results of the author's own research conducted with scientific method; review articles giving an original, detailed and critical view of a research problem or an area in which the author has contributed; and short communications of smaller volume or preliminary character. Alongside those, it carries scientific critiques and polemics argued on scientific grounds, reviews and reflections, short book and conference reviews, and statistical annexes. Manuscripts may be submitted in English or in Serbian, including all standard variants of the former Serbo-Croatian language. An Online First stream carries accepted, peer-reviewed and edited articles ahead of their issue, each citable by its DOI, which the journal assigns to every article and registers with CrossRef.

Publishing Model: Diamond Open Access, No Fees

The journal's official site states its model in one sentence: it does not charge any fees for submission, reviewing or production. That makes Stanovništvo a diamond open-access journal — free to read and free to publish in — funded instead by institutional support; the site records that publication is supported financially by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovations of the Republic of Serbia. Its DOAJ record agrees in detail: no article processing charges, no other charges, authors retain copyright, plagiarism screening is in place, and the average publication time recorded there is 15 weeks.

Licensing changed recently, and authors citing or reusing articles should note the boundary the journal itself draws. All articles published before 25 September 2024 are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0); from that date, articles are licensed under the more permissive Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), which is also the licence shown on the journal's current DOAJ record. Digital copies are archived by the National Library of Serbia and through the PKP Preservation Network, giving the journal a preservation arrangement independent of its own website.

Indexing and Metrics

The journal's official site lists its coverage directly: Stanovništvo is covered by the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, SCImago (SJR), ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, DOAJ, CrossRef, CEEOL and CNKI. That is a strong indexing portfolio for a semiannual regional journal, and it is corroborated for DOAJ by the journal's own live DOAJ record, which this profile verified directly by ISSN: the record carries both ISSNs, the Belgrade publisher, English and Serbian as publication languages, demography and population studies as its subject keywords, and a last full DOAJ review date of 17 October 2024. Authors should still verify any single service's coverage in that service before relying on it for institutional reporting, since coverage lists change; but the journal's claim is documented on its own site and, for DOAJ, independently confirmed.

Citation figures are given here from OpenAlex, with attribution, because databases count differently. Resolving the journal through OpenAlex's ISSN endpoint (source S4210226873, checked for this profile) gave 482 indexed works, all recorded as open access, with 911 citations in total, an h-index of 12, an i10-index of 20 and a two-year mean citedness of about 0.52. Its largest OpenAlex topic clusters sit in demography — mortality and demographic risk, regional socio-economic development trends, and family dynamics — which matches its declared scope. The older stored Journals World summary carried an h-index of 10 from a different counting base; the difference is a property of the databases' coverage, not an error in either, and any figure quoted from this profile should name OpenAlex as its source. For a journal whose natural audience is a regional research community publishing in two languages, these are respectable working numbers, and its Web of Science and Scopus presence matters more to most authors than any single summary statistic.

Editorial Leadership and Peer Review

From December 2024 the editor-in-chief is Ivan Marinković, succeeding Vladimir Nikitović in a line of editors the journal itself documents back to its founder, Miloš Macura. The journal's DOAJ record describes its review process as single anonymous peer review, and links from that record lead to the journal's own peer-review and editorial-team pages on its official site, where the current board is published. By submitting, authors undertake to follow the journal's published publication-ethics rules, which cover authorship, originality and the handling of manuscripts; the journal states that it publishes original papers that have not been published previously. Researchers preparing a submission should read the ethics and review pages on the live site, since those pages, rather than any directory profile, are the operative statements of current policy.

How to Submit

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's official site at stnv.idn.org.rs, following the author instructions published there. A prospective author should first settle the article's category — research paper, review article or short communication are the journal's own classes — and write to that form. The manuscript may be in English or Serbian. Because the journal appears twice a year and carries an Online First stream, accepted work can become citable by DOI ahead of the printed issue, and the DOAJ-recorded average publication time of 15 weeks gives a planning indication, though not a promise, for authors working to reporting deadlines. There is no fee at any stage: submission, review and production are all free to authors, and the published article is free to every reader.

Fit is the main editorial question. Work grounded in the populations of Serbia, the former Yugoslav region and neighbouring countries is the journal's heartland, and comparative or methodological work from further afield is welcomed where it speaks to that readership — the journal says so itself. A manuscript that engages the region's central demographic realities — population ageing, low fertility, emigration and internal migration, mortality change and family transformation — addresses the questions its editors and reviewers are best placed to judge.

Similar Journals

Authors comparing venues for population research may also consider other long-running European demography journals with a regional base, the large international population journals for work of worldwide scope, and Journals World's other demography and population-studies records for neighbouring titles. Stanovništvo's distinctive position in that company is the combination it offers: a sixty-year continuous run, Web of Science and Scopus coverage, a bilingual English and Serbian platform, and a diamond open-access model with no author fees, all from one of the Balkans' founding demographic institutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the ISSNs of Stanovništvo? Print ISSN 0038-982X and electronic ISSN 2217-3986, both shown on the journal's official site and on its DOAJ record.

Who publishes Stanovništvo? The Centre for Demographic Research of the National Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, Serbia, with the Association of Demographers of Serbia as co-publisher since 1990. The numeric code on the old Journals World record was a placeholder, not a publisher.

When was Stanovništvo founded, and by whom? It was first published in 1963 by the Center for Demographic Research of the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade. Its initiator and first editor-in-chief was Miloš Macura, later director of the United Nations Population Division (1966–1972).

Is Stanovništvo open access, and does it charge fees? Yes, and no. It is a diamond open-access journal: the journal states that it does not charge any fees for submission, reviewing or production, and its DOAJ record confirms there are no article processing charges.

Who is the current editor-in-chief? Ivan Marinković, who took over in December 2024, according to the journal's official site.

Where is Stanovništvo indexed? The journal lists the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, SCImago, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, DOAJ, CrossRef, CEEOL and CNKI. Its DOAJ listing was verified directly by ISSN for this profile.

How often does Stanovništvo appear, and in which languages? Twice a year, in electronic and printed versions. Manuscripts may be submitted in English or Serbian, including standard variants of the former Serbo-Croatian language.

What are its citation metrics? On OpenAlex (source S4210226873, checked for this profile): 482 works, 911 citations, h-index 12, i10-index 20, two-year mean citedness about 0.52. Quote figures with their database named.

The Journal's Themes in Its Second Half-Century

The questions that fill Stanovništvo's recent decades can be read from the work written about and within it. Serbia and its neighbours present, in concentrated form, the demographic condition of much of Europe: sustained low fertility, advanced population ageing, continuing emigration of the young, mortality levels that lag behind the continent's west, and family change proceeding along paths that mix new behaviour with durable traditional patterns. The journal's pages have carried the measurement of those processes and the argument about their meaning — including, characteristically, argument with itself: an interview-based study published around its anniversary years found Serbian demographers united on the discipline's standards, divided on the country's prospects, and in near-consensus that population ageing is the greatest demographic challenge Serbia faces. A journal that publishes its own community's disagreements, in a refereed form, is doing the work of a disciplinary forum rather than a house organ, and that is the role its stated aims claim for it.

Its fiftieth-anniversary reflections made the same point historically. Demography, the anniversary survey argued, began as a predominantly formal discipline — life tables, stable populations, exact measurement — and developed into a social and interdisciplinary field whose vocabulary keeps expanding as it absorbs neighbouring sciences; the journal's contents followed that arc, from formal measurement toward family sociology, migration studies, population policy and the social meaning of demographic change. For a new author, that history defines the reception a manuscript will get: formal demographic craft is respected — the journal was founded by a director of the UN Population Division — but it is craft in the service of understanding real populations, and papers are read by demographers who produce the region's official data as well as by those who analyse it.

Practically, the journal's bilingual platform is part of its value. Work published in Serbian reaches the national community of researchers, teachers and data producers in their working language; work in English, and the English-language presence of the journal as a whole, carries the region's demographic evidence into the international literature, where South-East Europe is still under-represented relative to the drama of its population changes. Depopulation, ageing and emigration are not abstractions in this region; they are emptying municipalities and reshaping states, and Stanovništvo is the longest-running refereed record of how that happened and what it means. That record, running unbroken since 1963, is why a semiannual journal from one Belgrade institute holds Web of Science and Scopus coverage that many larger titles lack.

A Note on the Title

Stanovništvo is the Serbian word for population, and the journal is met in international databases under that title, under its transliteration without diacritics (Stanovnistvo, the form used as this record's headword), and occasionally under the English rendering Population, which OpenAlex records among its alternate titles. The ISSN pair — 0038-982X and 2217-3986 — is the reliable thread through all those forms, and searches for the journal's record, its indexing and its articles are best anchored on the ISSNs, with the title forms used as supporting terms, exactly as the twin-check for this profile was run.

Verification Notes

This profile was built from the journal's official site (about, history, editorial and fee statements), its DOAJ search-API record fetched by both ISSNs (publisher, languages, review model, no charges, 15-week publication time, CC BY licence), and OpenAlex source S4210226873 resolved through its ISSN endpoint, whose figures are quoted with attribution. Nothing in this profile rests on the old stored record beyond its title and ISSNs; its numeric publisher code has been replaced here by the publisher the journal itself names.