(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – August 31, 2015) Life expectancy in Russia has been growing several times slower than in the rest of the world for the past 20 years, according to a research by the U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation released last week. During the period of 1990-2013 it only grew by 1.8 years […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – August 28, 2015) When asked what the most important things to do before turning 30 are, most Russians chose getting married, giving birth and receiving an education, while things like starting a business or traveling the world were at the bottom of the list, a poll released Wednesday by an independent Russian […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Peter R. Orszag – August 11, 2015) Peter R. Orszag is a Bloomberg View columnist. Now vice chairman of corporate and investment banking and chairman of the financial strategy and solutions group at Citigroup, he was previously director of the Office of Management and Budget. Russian President Vladimir Putin may be undermining global peace and civic […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos, Anna Dolgov – August 6, 2015) A senior Russian official has praised plans to restrict condom imports as part of a drive to reduce reliance on foreign-made goods, suggesting Wednesday that a dearth of the rubber contraceptives will make people more “disciplined” and boost birth rates. Fewer condoms will make people “more strict […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Elizaveta Vereykina – July 5, 2015) Residents of the Russian capital are having more children and having them closer together – a trend that may increase as the state continues to fight the country’s demographic crisis and promote traditional family values. “While in the beginning of 2014 there were 90,000 families with three or more […]
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(Paul Goble – Staunton, July 30, 2015) The Russian statistics agency reported yesterday that the birthrate in the Russian Federation had fallen to 12.6 children per 1000 population, lower than it has been at any point in the last three years and, according to experts, a reflection of both underlying demographic trends and current uncertainties about the future among Russians. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – July 21, 2015) Foreigners that used to live and work in Russia are now fleeing en masse, the Federal Migration Service has revealed. Since January 2014, 41 percent of Spanish nationals, 38 percent of British nationals, 36 percent of U.S. nationals and 31 percent of German nationals have left Russia, the Noviye […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 15, 2015) About 900,000 Ukrainians have contacted Russia’s Federal Migration Service since the start of the conflict in southeast Ukraine requesting status allowing them to reside there permanently, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 15 July. According to the FMS, just over a million citizens of southeast Ukraine have […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Roman Super, Claire Bigg – July 3, 2015) Just a year ago, Russian journalist Vladimir Yakovlev was one of Moscow’s most influential media figures. Today, he lives a quiet life in Tel Aviv and has swapped his Russian passport for an Israeli one. Yakovlev, the founder of the respected Kommersant publishing house and the Snob magazine, […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – June 15, 2015) Russia isn’t often thought of as a country of immigration. Yet the country’s enormous territory and shrinking indigenous population invite a striking number of immigrants: Last year, despite the collapse of oil prices and the Ukraine crisis, Russia was the biggest originator of migrant workers’ remittances in Europe. When President […]
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Sometimes labeled “the dying bear” or “the dying nation,” Russia has caught a lot of flack for its demographic problems. No demography isn’t the most popular topic in the world, it’s unfortunately quite a niche topic, but to the extent that anyone hears anything about Russia demography in the popular press they hear a tale of unmitigated calamity and woe.
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Like many Russians who climbed into an emerging middle class in recent years, Miller is watching his relative prosperity vanish. The plummet in global oil prices since last summer and Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its seizure of Ukrainian territory last year have cut deeply into the national budget, which depends on hydrocarbon exports for more than half of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Spinella – March 23, 2015) Eighty-three percent of Russians say they’re not interested in moving anywhere outside of the former Soviet Union, the independent Levada Center pollster revealed, noting that this represented the highest such figure since the end of the Soviet era. Another 81 percent of respondents said they never even think about the […]
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Subject: Re: #27 JRL 2015-#51, Russia’s Demography Just Took A Significant Turn For The Worse Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 From: Sergey Slobodyan <Sergey.Slobodyan@cerge-ei.cz> As Mark Adomanis correctly notes, one month doesn’t a trend make. Births in Nov-14 and Jan-15 did drop year-on-year, by 5.3 and 3.6%, respectively. But births in Dec-14, in contrast, have been the best in December […]
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[“Is Russia’s Demographic Recovery at Risk of Reversal?” – The Unz Review – unz.com – Anatoly Karlin – January 30, 2015] Antoly Karlin and The Unz Review examine Russia’s demographic shifts. This year will mark yet another milestone in Russia’s steady post-1990s demographic recovery, with the population minus Crimea hitting 144.0 million as of January 1, 2015 … relative to 143.7 […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) – A natural population growth in Russia stood at 37,100 in January-October 2014, Labor and Social Protection Minister Maxim Topilin said. “On the whole, natural population growth amounted to 37,100 people in January-October 2014. It grew by 23,200 persons compared with the relevant period of 2013,” the ministry press service quoted Topilin as saying on Friday. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 2, 2014) Around 500,000 Russians die due to alcohol abuse every year, Russia’s health and safety watchdog said in a statement Monday. More teenagers and women of childbearing age have started consuming alcohol, which lowers life expectancy and contributes to the number of untimely deaths in the country, the statement said. The government has […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Darya Lyubinskaya, special to RBTH – November 25, 2014) Russians are increasingly leaving marriage to a later age in order to focus on their careers and personal interests. While a decade ago 40 percent of weddings were between people under the age of 24, that figure is now just 20 percent. Experts attribute […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) – Approximately 2.6 million Ukrainian nationals are staying in Russia at the moment, which is one million more than a year ago, Federal Migration Service (FMS) chief Konstantin Romodanovsky said at the Thursday meeting of the Council of Legislators dedicated to migration policy issues. “About 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens are currently staying in Russia, which is […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) – More than 3.5 million Ukrainian nationals moved to Russia this year, Lilia Arestova, deputy head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) naturalization department, said at a meeting of the committee for public support to residents of south-eastern Ukraine. “The FMS is keeping a daily record of arrivals. A total of 3,631,124 Ukrainian nationals moved to […]
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(Interfax – October 14, 2014) A comparison of genomes of ancient Europeans and people living in contemporary countries has shown that a Siberian tribe is an ancestor of modern Europeans, said Olga Posukh, senior research fellow of the human molecular genetics laboratory of the Cytology and Genetics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian branch. “A certain genetic component of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 14, 2014) Russia’s statistics agency on Tuesday launched a sweeping census of the population in the Crimea region, which the country annexed from Ukraine in March. Residents will be asked to field 33 questions on their age, ethnicity, spouse and children, native language and housing and income, the regional branch of the State Statistics […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 8, 2014) Many Russian regions now have more refugees from Ukraine than they had expected or can handle, and officials suggest that more are likely to arrive as Ukraine’s economy and weather deteriorate. As a result, the situation of these refugees is “becoming critical,” according to experts. In today’s “Novyye izvestiya,” […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 7, 2014) Hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled from the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region to Russia may never return. Despairing of peace in Donbass, and with unemployment in Russia at a historic low, the population movement may exacerbate Ukraine’s already disastrous demographics. According to United Nations figures, more than 1m […]
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(Interfax – September 8, 2014) Gorki, 8 September: Some 105,000 Ukrainian citizens have been granted the refugee status, some 500 people apply every day for participation in the programme for voluntary resettlement of compatriots from abroad, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Kozak has said. “I would like to remind you that the (refugee – Interfax) status has been currently granted to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 26, 2014) Three of every four Russian university students would prefer to work abroad rather than in Russia, Newsru.com reported Monday, citing a survey conducted by Career.ru. The survey revealed that 77 percent of Russian students found the prospect of overseas employment more appealing than working at home. Those most hopeful for overseas jobs […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 12, 2014) About one in every 10 Russians wants to emigrate from the country, a recent poll has shown, and while few seem to be actively pursuing their wish, the number is significant because it represents mostly young and educated professionals. Among those who said they wanted to leave Russia, 47 percent were motivated […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 8, 2014) Unless Moscow addresses and overcomes “super-high mortality rates” among young people and working-age Russians, the country will face population decline even if the Russian government is able to boost fertility rates, according to Abel Aganbegyan, a member of the Academy of Sciences and a Kremlin advisor. Indeed, the noted […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 23, 2014) When Russia annexed Crimea in March, it added 2.4 million people to the country’s population of 143.7 million, prompting several Western observers to put forward the theory that the Kremlin’s aim was to offset the effect of the country’s long-declining population. Yet last year, long before the events in […]
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MOSCOW. June 20 (Interfax) – Over 400,000 citizens of Ukraine who have left the regions of Ukraine where a military conflict is going on have arrived in Russia, Russian Federal Migration Service official Vladimir Rucheikov said. “Over 400,000 citizens of Ukraine have arrived in Russia since March. They are legalized under the law On Refugee Status on the territory of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – May 30, 2014) Russia is about to criminalize failure to declare dual citizenship in what lawmakers say is a bid to crack down on the “fifth column” – and the fifth column is duly scared. Exposing holders of multiple passports may be the first step to banning dual citizenship, said a holder […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 7, 2014) The domestic consequences of Moscow’s Crimean policy combined with Russia’s weakening economic prospects will drive ever more young Russians to seek work and possibly permanent residence abroad, an “exodus” that will hurt the country far more than any of the sanctions announced so far, according to Yevgeny Gontmakher. In […]
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(Kremlin.ru – February 17, 2014) Vladimir Putin held a State Council Presidium meeting on family, motherhood and childhood policy, in particular with regard to implementing the May 2012 Presidential Executive Orders. Taking part in the meeting were Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, Presidential Aide Igor Levitin, the heads of federal ministries and agencies, and a […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 18, 2014) Three newly released statistics – one on births in Kazakhstan, a second on how Russians understand events in Ukraine, and a third on where websites of the .ru domain are hosted – say more about where the Russian Federation is heading than do more prominent declarations of Moscow political […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Elena Lysak, special to RBTH – January 28, 2014) The Ministry of Health will set up crisis pregnancy centers in an attempt to decrease the number of abortions each year. Population loss through abortions in the 1960s to 1980s cost Russia more than double the number of lives it had lost in the […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 22 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s population showed natural growth of 22,650 people last year despite a declining birthrate, the country’s health minister said Tuesday. The mortality rate over the first 11 months decreased by 19,000 deaths compared with the same period in 2012, while the birth rate dropped by only 919 births, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said in […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 15, 2014) For the first time since the end of the USSR, there were more births than deaths among Russian citizens during the first 11 months of 2013. While the difference was small, 23,000, compard to the number of births 1.753 million and deaths 1.730 million, many commentators were celebrating what […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 14, 2014) Russia’s demographic decline is taking many forms the disappearance of villages, the hollowing out of the countryside and difficulties with meeting draft quotas and having enough working age people to support an aging population but perhaps the most dramatic is the predicted disappearance of relatively large cities […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 23, 2013) Unless the Russian government takes effective measures over the next decade to raise birthrates and cut super-high death rates, two Moscow experts say, the country will see a catastrophic decline not only in its overall population but even more among those of working age. Darya Khalturina and Yevgenya Yuryeva […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) – Russia’s population was an estimated 143.6 million on November 1, 2013, up 261,600 from the beginning of 2013, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said. The number of births in January-October rose to 1,591,600 from 1,586,900 in the same period of last year. The number of deaths fell to 1,574,800 from 1,586,100. Natural population growth […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 17, 2013) “Time is working for President Putin and his regime” because the aging of the Russian population means that he can rely on the ever greater share of the population of pensioners, some Moscow experts say, but concomitantly time is working against Russia because it is rapidly driving down the […]
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MOSCOW. December 6 (Interfax) – Immigration may partially compensate for the decline in Russia’s population, Federal Migration Service head Konstantin Romodanovsky said during his lecture at Moscow State University on Friday. “New estimates were posted this year saying that the Russian able-bodied population would fall by almost 10 million by 2025, alongside a reduction of the total population and an […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 18 (Interfax) – The majority of Russians (76%) are concerned about the decrease of the country’s population, shows a poll conducted by the research group TsIRKON. The poll surveyed 1,600 Russians, including 110 journalists. The poll, which has been obtained by Interfax-Religion, shows that 56% of the respondents believe the reduction of Russia’s population is very dangerous, but […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) – One of the reasons why Russia has banned U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children is the demographic issue, Russian children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov said. “We have a demographic forecast: the infant population in Russia will be about 22 million by 2025. And the United States will have 105 [million] by 2025. Is there a […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 10, 2013 – Chart here: http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/11/window-on-eurasia-populations-of-former.html) The former Soviet space had 48 million fewer people living on it in 2010 than Soviet demographers in 1990 had predicted for that year, with all 15 of the states having smaller populations than were was projected for them and 10 of the 15 having […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – November 6, 2013) A day after hundreds of detentions at numerous nationalist rallies across the country, media reports circulated Tuesday that the government is considering creating an interethnic relations ministry to keep tensions under control. Immigration has dominated the Russian media landscape since thousands took part in a nationalist riot in the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 3, 2013) The Kremlin celebrates every temporary uptick in the Russian birthrate, but it and many others typically ignore another deeply troubling aspect of that country’s deteriorating demographic situation: extraordinarily high death rates among adults and especially working-age males. Indeed, those rates are so high Russia ranks 175th among the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – October 16, 2013) The conflict that started in the capital has spread to other major cities. In the Russian regions, people have started taking to the streets in support of residents of the Moscow district of Biryulovo, who staged riots in response to the murder of a young man […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, October 14, 2013) Moscow’s migrant workers have seen this story before and they believe they have reason to be afraid. When an unidentified man — believed to be from the Caucasus — stabbed and killed a young ethnic Russian on October 10, triggering the capital’s worst ethnic riots in three years, police […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – October 15, 2013) Surrounded by railroads, industrial estates and giant cooling towers from a local thermal plant, the Western Biryulyovo district where riots broke out Sunday oozes its own sense of disunion from the rest of Moscow and residents say it has become a hostage to its own growing marginalization. “If […]
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