Bulgaria is one of an extremely few countries in the world where the males in the population have outnumbered the females over a considerable portion of its modern history. This has been a phenomenon that could not be adequately explained by events or circumstances; but of nine censuses taken between 1887 and 1965, only in those taken in 1920 and 1947 did the females constitute a majority. These two years following the great wars were undoubtedly atypical in that, although Bulgaria did not suffer great manpower losses from war casualties, the males were probably more mobile, and many of them may not have returned to the country or, in the immediate aftermath of the wars, may not yet have settled down (see table 1).
_Table 1. Bulgaria, Population by Age and Sex, 1973 Estimate_
---------+----------------+----------------+----------------+------------ |Number of People| | Male Female| | in Age Group | Percentage of |----------------|Females per Age Group| (in thousands) |Total Population| (in thousands)| 100 Males ---------+----------------+----------------+----------------+------------ Under 5 | 676 | 7.8 | 348 328 | 94 5-9 | 609 | 7.0 | 313 296 | 94 10-14 | 647 | 7.5 | 331 316 | 95 15-19 | 665 | 7.7 | 340 325 | 96 20-24 | 703 | 8.1 | 357 346 | 97 25-29 | 629 | 7.3 | 317 312 | 98 30-34 | 558 | 6.4 | 280 278 | 99 35-39 | 616 | 7.1 | 310 306 | 99 40-44 | 649 | 7.5 | 327 322 | 98 45-49 | 668 | 7.7 | 334 334 | 100 50-54 | 467 | 5.4 | 231 236 | 102 55-59 | 421 | 4.9 | 210 211 | 100 60-64 | 460 | 5.3 | 225 235 | 104 65-69 | 372 | 4.3 | 178 194 | 109 70-74 | 264 | 3.0 | 122 142 | 116 75 year | | | | and over| 263 | 3.0 | 110 153 | 139 | | | | TOTAL. | 8,667 | 100.0 | 4,333 4,334 | 100* ---------+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------- * Overall ratio for total population. Source: Adapted from Godfrey Baldwin, (ed.), _International Population Reports_, (U.S. Department of Commerce, Series P-91, No. 18), Washington, 1969.
The male majority, however, narrowed and has apparently evaporated for the foreseeable future. The reversal reflects a change in life expectancy statistics. Around the turn of the century average life expectancy was forty years, and females are estimated to have outlived males by less than six months. Seventy years later, average life expectancy had increased by twenty-five years, but females were outliving males by an average of about four years. Projected from the 1965 census and from vital statistics information accumulated since that time, numerical equality between the sexes came about in the late 1960s, and in mid-1973 it was estimated that females outnumbered males by the small majority of 4.334 million to 4.333 million.