“… Russia’s population has been in near-constant decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, due to a low birth rate, an under-resourced healthcare system, and emigration. The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed at least 400,000 people in Russia according to the national statistic agency Rosstat, has seriously aggravated the problem. … This week the country set a […]
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“President Vladimir Putin has been trying for years to push Russia’s birthrate higher, but the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is undermining his efforts” “… The Kremlin has been trying for years to encourage Russians to have more children. … Putin sees replenishing … population as … key to expanding Russia’s economic and political power. But … falling incomes […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 30, 2019) Fertility rates in Russia have again fallen to the levels they were in during the 1990s, Rosstat data show, and the government assumes that when the deceive economy improves, they will go right back up. But a more careful examination of the data suggests that underlying shifts in values […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 9, 2018) Vladimir Putin’s new May decrees are no more realistic or realizable than the 2012 ones that even he has acknowledged have remained largely unfulfilled, Yevgeny Gontmakher says. Instead, they are slogans about the future like those the Soviet government trotted out on holidays and that no one in the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 29, 2018) Russia’s birth rate has fallen to the lowest level in a decade, with just 1.69 million births recorded last year, despite government efforts to reverse the demographic trend, according to official data. The government plans to spend $8.6 billion over three years to encourage Russians to have more babies starting this election […]
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“… The government will spend 500 billion rubles ($8.6 billion) over three years on measures to encourage Russians to have more babies, including mortgage subsidies and payments to new and growing families …. The money will come from government reserves and won’t require changes in the budget, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the upper house of parliament. …”
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, November 14, 2017) The situation with regard to Russia’s birthrate is much worse than officials say, Igor Gundarov says. It is not easily correctible as some think but rather reflects a “cascading demographic” decline that now represents the main threat to the national security” of the country. The specialist on health care […]
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“… With Russia’s natural population growth entering an extended period of decline, villages like Baruta are disappearing from across the country’s continental expanse. * * * Russia’s demographic problem dates back at least 100 years, to the upheaval of the 1917 revolution, followed by Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Both events curbed population growth, foreshadowing the devastating impact of World […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 4, 2017) Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistics agency, reports that during the first four months of 2017, Russians gave birth to almost 70,000 fewer children than they did in the comparable period a year earlier, a decline that wiped out all gains from declines in mortality rates and put Russia on […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 29, 2017) Just before the May holidays, Russia’s state statistical agency released figures on births, deaths and marriages that Moscow may hope no one will notice because they are so bad; but Russian economists have sounded the alarm that the population decline they point to may make impossible for the Russian […]
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After an upswing from 2005 to 2015, Russia’s birth rate is once again declining. Meanwhile, mortality continues to grow, and the government needs innovative ideas and reforms to rectify the situation. Proposed measures, however, primarily benefit women and ignore the interests of men. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – YEKATERINA SINELSCHIKOVA, RBTH – April 21, 2017) Russia’s Education and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Pavel Aptekar – February 1, 2017) Russia has long had a demographic crisis. That is why, 10 years ago, leaders introduced “maternity capital” – a special program encouraging couples to have more children. Participants receive government payouts for every successive child after their first. Families must use the money for specific needs – paying off […]
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… Putin… issued an extraordinary putdown to the West as he boasted that Russia was outbreeding its rivals and unveiled new scientific measures to up the country’s birth rate further still. … plans to roll out 94 “hi-tech” perinatal centres across the country during his annual address to parliament. … Putin pledged a series of measures, from scientific to social, […]
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People in Russia do not view the current economic crisis as a disaster and are not giving up on their plans to have children, say analysts. One of the crucial factors keeping the birth rate stable is low unemployment.
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 15, 2016) Russia’s birth rate is still increasing, despite the country’s ongoing economic crisis, a report by the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting revealed Thursday. The number of births in the first half of 2016 increased by 1.6 percent compared to the same period last year. The children were conceived in the second […]
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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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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 20, 2013) The birth rate in Russia grew 30 percent since 2007, Russian Minister of Labor and Social Protection Maxim Topilin said on Wednesday. In his interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station, the minister attributed the trend in part to the introduction of the so-called “maternity capital” on January 1, 2007. “During this period, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – May 27, 2013) Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova says the population decline in that country has “stopped.” Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on May 27, Skvortsova said Russia’s birthrate rose by 5.6 percent in 2012, at the same time that antitobacco campaigns and other health measures helped lower the death rate. The United Nations predicts […]
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