Ethnic Russians at Risk of Being 'Replaced' by Central Asian Migrants, New Academy of Sciences Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 27 – Ethnic Russians share the sense of many other long dominant peoples in other countries that they will be replaced by immigrants and their children because the latter are increasing in number and have more offspring, while the indigenous nation is declining in number and has ever fewer children.

            Such fears are being exacerbated by an Academy of Sciences study that finds immigrants from Central Asia are two and a half times more likely to have three or more children than are Muscovites, 42 percent to 17 percent (svpressa.ru/society/article/396051/ and rbc.ru/economics/25/11/2023/6560a7829a79470b8c7a613c).

            According to scholars at the Moscow Institute of Demographic Research who conducted this investigation, this pattern reflects fundamental differences in the values of the two communities, differences that make it unlikely that the government can correct the situation by any of the policies it has in place if it continues to rely on immigrant workers.

            Indeed, they suggest, “if Russians want to have a future, they will have to change,” adopting a very different value set than they have now. But that is unlikely given that the Putin regime maintains itself in power by promoting capitalist values that are affecting ethnic Russians far more than Central Asians.

            In short, although the authors of the study do not say so, the difference in demographic behavior between ethnic Russians and Central Asian immigrants is not just about length of urbanization but about the values people have. And in this regard, if the Kremlin doesn’t change the values or stop relying on immigrants, Russians will truly be “replaced” by the latter.