Villages Becoming Ghettos

Abstract

The object of my paper is an area with small villages, largely over-represented by Roma population. In the middle of the 1980s there were one or two small villages becoming ghettos, at present 17 ethnically segregated settlements can be found in the micro-region besides dozens of other villages approaching towards the state of ethnic segregation. As a result of massive unemployment and the demographic changes brought about by the exchange of population, not only more and more villages became ghettos in the area, but the structure of local society has also changed. In each settlement either the majority of the inhabitants or, in more serious cases, the whole village community is excluded from the labour force market as well as from the education system, which could offer them social mobility.