Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 5 – In his
message to the Federal Assembly yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin
combined bombast, historical gnorance and dishonesty on a wide range of issues.
But he did make a number of comments which point to possible shifts in Moscow’s
policies in the future.
Perhaps none of these could prove as
important as his shift in focus from increasing birthrates, his primary concern
in the past, to cutting mortality rates, as a means of increasing life
expectancies of Russians from what he said were now 71 years at birth for both
genders to 74 in the future (qha.com.ua/putin-poruchil-uvelichit-prodoljitelnost-jizni-rossiyan-141645.html).
Both
Russian and Western demographers have long noted that Russian birthrates are
not too dissimilar from those in European countries, but they have said that death
rates among adult Russians are vastly higher, comparable to those in many third
world countries including some which are suffering from wars and other
disasters.
The
sources of those super-high mortality rates are to be found in alcoholism and
alcohol-related illnesses, accidents in the home and at work, and violence. At
present, nearly half of Russian men do not life to retirement age, and death
rates among women of working age have been increasing as well.
The
reason that Putin has focused on boosting birthrates through maternal capital
programs and restrictions on access to abortion rather than on cutting
mortality rates is because doing the former is both cheaper and easier than
doing the latter, and consequently, Putin’s newly expressed confidence that he
can make this shift is almost certainly misplaced.
As
his government has demonstrated, it is possible to boost birthrates by
providing maternal capital and restricting access to abortions, although some
experts say that the former may change only the timing and not the number of
births per woman and that the latter may lead to higher rates of mortality
among women.
In
his speech yesterday, Putin celebrated what he has achieved in this sector,
pointedly noting that the United Nations in 2000 projected the Russian
population would fall far more than it has. Indeed, fertility rates among
Russians have increased, although some Russian demographers say they are likely
to decline again if the economic situation deteriorates.
If
Putin is serious about reducing mortality among Russian adults, however, he
will have to find and spend more money on demographic programs than he has in
the past, a step that will be difficult if not impossible given the
stringencies the Russian budget now faces and the cutbacks in medical and social
services he has already been forced to make.
And
the Kremlin leader will have to take on certain long-established social
patterns, including high alcohol consumption and a casual attitude toward
safety. There are things that can be
done in these areas, including boosting prices and restricting sales in the
first case and improving government oversight in the latter.
But
these are certain to be unpopular among the population and among Russian
businessmen, and Putin is certainly aware that past efforts by Russian
Imperial, Soviet, and Russian officials to address these things have sparked
precisely the kind of anger and
opposition that he has little interest in provoking.
No comments:
Post a Comment