Roma communities in Southeast Europe

The aim of this paper is to present the Roma people and their status in Southeast Europe; since they are the largest and most heterogeneous ethnic minority of the region. We are focusing on the Post-Yugoslav countries, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria. Hungary is not integrated organically to the studied countries, however for the easier comparison; we took the data of the Hungarian Gypsies into the analysis. The Roma people are not a homogeneous community, the religion, the language and the historical background both could differentiate them. Some ethnic groups who are attached the Gypsies also wish to distinguish themselves from the Romanies. The phenomenon of "preferred identity" can be observed within the Roma communities, which means that they do not identify themselves as Roma to avoid discrimination; and because of the assimilation (linguistic, religious and cultural) and "social progress" (especially in the more educated social layer). The socio-economic inequalities are increasing among both the Roms and the rest of the population; and within the Roma population as well. There are people in each country who live under or fall below the poverty line; however this process is much more intense and more drastic amongst the Roma population. This paper also aims to shed the light on the current situation of the Romani people living in the Balkans. For the sake of the objective we found important to present the history of the Roma in each country. We carried out a comprehensive analysis of the Hungarian and foreign literature, therefore, to the maximum extent possible, we tried to get to know previous studies of those researchers as widely as possible the, who live in the countries concerned. Mainly based on the UNDP Roma Survey 2011, we compared the Roma population of each country; we discuss the causes of the differences in the various statistical data; we reveal the disparities of the labor market data, language usage, living conditions and educational data, which can be observed in every country examined.