THEORETICAL AND METODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF POPULATION POLICY AND ITS CONCEPTION FOR THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

The article deals with theory, methodology as well as the international and Slovak experiences with population policy. The main aim is to distinguish between the population policy and other policies, especially the family, social and migration ones. The article reviews several definitions and models of the population policy, focusing on the differences between its wide and narrow conceptions and their country-specific applications. The authors analyse the population policy in Slovakia, which could had been launched in Slovakia only after 1989 and critically assess the debates on its success and efficiency. They explore the constitutive components of successful population policy such as its founding value principles, including humanism, cultural and societal integrity, social equity, tolerance, freedom, responsibility, and inter and the intragenerational solidarity. The authors compare the legislative, social, economic, educational and medical tools and the measures of the social policy and conclude that the issues of migration, housing, equality of the opportunities and consistency between the work and family duties shall be included into the conception of the population policy in Slovakia.