Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 15 – 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 one called “a cross on the
Russian cross.”
But behind these figures are two
others that are a matter for greater concern in Moscow. On the one hand, this
achievement was an artifact less of rising birth rates than of an anomalously
high number of young women in the prime childbearing age groups, a cohort that
will decline precipitously in the coming years and with that decline so too the
number of births.
And on the other, most of the growth,
as small as it was, came from non-Russian and especially predominantly Muslim
areas in the North Caucasus and Middle Volga.
The predominantly ethnic Russian center of the country continued to die
off. As a result, the balance of the
population between Russians and non-Russians continues to shift against the
former.
In this week’s “Ekspert,” Ivan
Rubanov offers these figures and suggests that they disprove the claims of the pessimists
about the demographic future of Russia but do not mean that the country is out
of the woods as far as either fertility or mortality rates are concerned (expert.ru/expert/2014/03/krest-na-russkij-krest/).
One of the reasons the pessimists
were wrong, he says, is that women are now giving birth later in life than they
did. Consequently, their focus only on the size and behavior of the youngest
age groups failed to include the increasing number of children born to women
over the age of 25.
Another reason for their mistake,
Rubanov says, is that the pessimists assumed that any increases in the number
of births reflected the influx of migrants. While some immigrants who have
taken Russian citizenship do have higher fertility rates, their number is
relatively small. Those without Russian citizenship, he said, are not counted
by Russian agencies for this purpose.
And yet another reason, he argues,
is the government’s pro-natalist policies, although he acknowledged that it is “practically
impossible” to segregate out their role as compared to other factors in
explaining the recent improvements. He does note as well that mortality rates
have fallen, thus allowing the number of births to exceed the number of deaths.
In Chechnya, for example, largely
because of a more favorable age structure, there are now five times as many
births as deaths, and in Ingushetia, that figure is seven, a pattern that will
lead to more children in the next generation there even if as seems like
fertility rates among these Muslim nationalities fall. In the Daghestani capital, fertility rates are now
similar to those in the cities of central Russia.
In Russian regions of the country, on the other hand, the
demographic future looks bleak outside the capital. “Crudely speaking,” Rubanov says, “there is
simply no one in the villages of the Non-Black Earth zone to give birth”
because of the flight of young people to the cities and the dying off of the old.
No
one should be “euphoric” about these latest figures or reduce his or her
attention to demography, the “Ekspert” writer says. More needs to be done: more kindergartens
need to be built, more attractive apartments and houses for families erected,
and more opportunities for part time work so women do not have to choose between
family and job.
Those
are good things to do on their own, Rubanov concludes because “even if the
demographic impact from these measures turns out to be small, they will
definitely help to raise the quality of life of Russians,” something that
should be the goal of Russian government policies.
.
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