Paul Goble
Staunton,
March 12 – The demographic numbers for Russia in January 2019 are in, Igor
Nikolayev says, and they show that the country’s “demographic pit is becoming a
chasm,” the result in the first instance of the economic crisis and the
Kremlin’s talk of war and one that is hitting ethnic Russians harder than
anyone else, Igor Nikolayev says.
In
the middle of this decade, the Kremlin celebrated the first positive
demographic numbers since the end of Soviet times with births up, deaths down,
and migration boosting the total population. Then things went off track and
now, the economist continues, all three are heading the wrong direction (echo.msk.ru/blog/nikolaev_i/2386915-echo/).
Russian officials seek
to blame this as a echo of the 1990s when low birthrates meant that fewer future
mothers were born, but that is a trend that was knowable in advance and should
have given pause to the upbeat claims of several years ago. Now, however, Nikolayev
says, it is clear that the chief culprits are the economic crisis and the talk
of war.
On the one
hand, with falling incomes, people are less willing to take on the additional
responsibilities that having children impose and those in other countries do
not see the same opportunities in Russia that they saw earlier and thus are not
coming in the first place or going home or elsewhere instead or remaining.
And on
the other, all the talk about Russia being “a besieged fortress” and war being
a very real possibility hardly creates the kind of conditions in which potential
parents are going to think about having children. Even if they want them, they
seem likely to put off having babies until the situation clarifies itself.
Last
year, according to Rosstat, “the size of the population of the country fell by
93,500. Such an absolute decline had not happened in Russia since 2008 when the
population fell 10,300.” Not only were there fewer births and more deaths, some
the result of the aging population, but immigration was insufficient to cover
the decline in Russia itself.
Figures provided by the central ZAGS
register for January 2019 are even worse: “the number of children born in
January 2019 fell by 10.4 percent compared to January 2018.” The natural
decline of the population for one month alone increased from 30,308 in January
2018 to 44,307 in January this year, Nikolayev says.
What all this means, the economist
continues, is that the demographic situation in 2019 will “significantly
worsen.” Another indication of that is this: “In January 2018, there were
49,500 marriages; but in January 2019, there were only 31,185, a decline of
36.4 percent. “ Of course, children are born out of wedlock as well, “but all
the same …”
The government talks about the aid it
is giving to parents, but this is insufficient, Nikolayev argues. Unless the
economic situation improves and unless the government stops talking about war
and about Russia being at risk of being destroyed, Russians are not going to
have more children. They are going to have ever fewer – and the population will
fall.
Within
these figures are ones that will disturb many ethnic Russians even more: The regions
of the country with the highest death rates in 2018 are those who are primarily
populated by ethnic Russians (rg.ru/2019/03/12/reg-skfo/v-kakih-regionah-samaia-nizkaia-smertnost-v-rossii.html).
That means that as the overall
population of the country declines, the share of ethnic Russians in it will
decline by even more, making the Kremlin’s claims on that point unsustainable
as well, as some Russian nationalist commentators are already pointing out (zen.yandex.ru/media/burckina_new/o-vymiranii-istoricheskoi-rossii-5c85f0730f8f1500b33866b8).
And some analysts are even
suggesting that the real figures are far worse than those Rosstat has put out (apn-spb.ru/opinions/article29836.htm). If that is true, then the real demographic
picture of Russia under Vladimir Putin is far worse than even the most convinced
pessimists have ever suggested.
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